Class P 2* 1 

Book Jtsg 

Copyright^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



TALES OF TO DAY 



✓ 

TALES OF TO-DAY 

AND OTHER DAYS 



from the french of 

Alfred de Musset Francois Coppee 
Alphonse Ka.rr Paul Bourget 
Theophile Gautier Guy de Maupassant 
Prosper Merimee Jules Claretie 
Iimile Zola 

TRANSLATED BY 

E. P. JOBINS 



NEW YORK 

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

104 & 106 Fourth Avenue 



\ 



Copyright, iS<?i, 

BY 

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 



All rig/its reserved. 



< < < 



THE MBRSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAH WAY, N. J. 



A WORD FROM THE TRANSLATOR. 



A few words of explanation seem in order anent 
the aim and purport of this small volume, otherwise 
the tales of which it is composed may seem to the 
critical so many disjecta membra, without form and 
void, fit subjects for the waste-basket. 

Briefly, then, it is a collection of those short stories 
that the French so excel in; the 41 Tales of To-day 5 * 
being selected from among the most famous of our 
modern raconteurs, while the "Tales of Other Days" 
are some of those that served to amuse and delight our 
fathers and grandfathers forty, fifty, sixty years ago, 
the intention being to give some faint idea of the dif- 
ference (if any) that characterizes the literary methods 
of the two epochs. 

Versatile Paris witnessed in 1830 two revolutions, 
of which it is hard to tell which was the more impor- 
tant in its results: one was the fall of the Bourbons, 
the other the emancipation of French literature from 
the bondage in which it had until then been held by 
the Classicists. Victor Hugo, the highpriest of the 
new cult, produced his Hernani on the stage in 1830; 

iii 



tV A WORD FROM THE TRANSLATOR, 

he was quickly surrounded by a band of young and 
enthusiastic followers, whose productions in the next 
thirty years were the delight of France and the world. 
The band comprised, in addition to their illustrious 
chief, Balzac, Dumas, George Sand, De Vigny, Sou- 
lie, and, last but not least, the four charming, inimit- 
able authors whose names appear on the title-page of 
this volume— De Musset, Karr, Gautier, and Merimee. 
They were all born in the years between 1803 and 
181 1 ; Musset was the first to die, in 1857; Karr sur- 
vived until 1890, forming a link between the past and 
present; his "Visit to the Arsenal," however, bears 
the date 1842. Of course there were others besides, 
less famous, but men of mark in their day, and they 
all united to form a galaxy that has hardly been 
equaled in any literature for delicacy, taste, and bril- 
liancy. 

Of the five names selected to represent the writers 
of to-day Emile Zola, the apostle of the realistic 
school, — which is not realism more than the work of a 
painter would be who should depict the slums of a 
great city and assert his picture to be a faithful repre- 
sentation of that city, ignoring its parks and palaces, 
its museums, gardens, and works of art, — Emile Zola is 
the most popular writer of the day, if judged by the 
sale attained by his books. But that proves — what? 
According to a recent statement, of "Nana," the 
most prurient of his books, 155,000 copies have been 



A WORD FROM THE TRANSLATOR. 



v 



sold in France; of ''La Faute de TAbbe Mouret," 
the cleanest, some 40,000, The inference seems to 
be, as Mr, Saintsbury says, that there are a great many 
(apparently) decent men and women who avail them- 
selves of an opportunity to purchase publicly and carry 
away with them indecent literature; the difference 
between the greater figure and the less may be taken as 
the indication of the extent to which M. Zola's popu- 
larity is ascribable to depraved tastes and instincts ; 
and while the tremendous sales of such books may put 
money in the author's pocket in the present, it will 
hardly help his reputation in the future. Argue as we 
may, art and beauty are closely allied; the union 
between art and deformity is an unholy one and the 
progeny will be tainted and short-lived. 

Will Zola and his imitators occupy fifty years hence 
the place in the affection of their countrymen that 
Hugo and the members of his school occupy to-day? 
The "Great Man" recently failed to secure the 
election to the Academie that he had solicited; like 
Piron, he may write his own epitaph, mutato nomine : 

Ci-git Zola, qui ne fut rien, 
Pas meme Academicien. 

Very antithetic to Zola in style, habit of thought, 
character, disposition, everything, is Francois Copp£e, 
the poet of the people. Gifted with a singularly melo- 
dious and tenderly poetic style, intensely sympathetic 
with humanity in all its aspects, he selects his charac- 



Vi A WORD FROM THE 'J RAN SLA TOR. 

tcrs for the most part from among the lowlier walks 
of life and pictures their troubles and sufferings and 
their infrequent joys with loving fidelity. A vein of 
gentle melancholy pervades his writings, varied by an 
occasional indignant denunciation of the shams and 
frauds of society, but without maudlin sentimentality. 
It is to be doubted, however, if he will ever receive 
the recognition that his tender grace and manly 
humanitarianism entitle him to, for he neither blows 
the trumpet nor beats the big drum, as some of his 
confreres are not above doing; and although he pipes 
so pleasantly, he does it, rather, cum tenui avena. 

De Maupassant, who seemed likely at one time to 
run Zola close in the race for popularity, is pretty 
well known on this side of the Atlantic; Bourget and 
Claretie, both adepts in the story-teller's art, are less 
so. It may be said that the Zola school is by no 
means omnipotent in the country of its birth ; there 
are many excellent men and eminent writers who dep- 
recate its influence on morals and on literature, and 
French authors, unconsciously to themselves perhaps, 
permit themselves to be swayed to a much greater 
extent than they did a short time ago by the influence 
of English and American writers. They appreciate 
more justly than they used to do the traits, habits, 
and character of their neighbors across the water; 
there is less (though even now too much) of that con- 
tempt for the outer barbarian that they formerly took 



A WORD FROM THE TRANSLATOR. vli 



such small pains to conceal For this better under- 
standing we are indebted to no one more than to the 
talented lady who, under the pseudonym of Th£o. 
Bentzon, contributes an occasional appreciative review 
to the pages of the Revue des Deux Mondes. 

I should have been glad could I have afforded those 
w*ho are so kind as to read my translation a better 
version of the great originals, but it is my experience 
that any attempt to use "fine language' ' is only too 
apt to result in a perversion of the sense. A trans- 
lation should follow its original as closely as may 
be without degenerating into servility: otherwise it 
ceases to be a translation and becomes an adaptation. 
There is a quotation that we often hear used: "O 
Liberty, what sins are committed in thy name!" 
Mme. Roland did not say that in her apostrophe; 
she said: O liberty comme on fa jouee ! "O Lib- 
erty, how men have cheated thee!" Doubtless the 
version that is more familiar to our ears rolls from off 
the tongue more glibly, but it is not the same. Cest 
magnifique, 7tiais ce n'est pas la guerre. The old simile 
occurs to me of decanting champagne, but it is trite; 
the only resource that I know of that will enable the 
reader to enjoy the style and sense of any foreign 
author is to get down his grammar and dictionary and 
master the language, 



CONTENTS. 

_____ 

^ PAGE 

^ Alfred de Musset : 

" Story of a White Blackbird/' i 

Alphonse Karr : 

" A Visit to the Arsenal," .... 39 
Tnt ophile Gautier : 

"The Thousand and Second Night," . . 63 
Prosper Merimee: 

"_L VlCCOLO DI MADAMA LUCREZIA," . . 97 

v Francois Coppee : 

"The Barrel-Organ," 131 

Paul Bourget: 

"A Case of Conscience," 143 

Guy de Maupassant: 

"Who Can Tell?" 157 

\ Guy de Maupassant : 

"The Drowned Man," ..... 179 
Jules Claretie: 

"The Cigarette," 191 

]_mile Zola : 

"The Attack on the Mill," .... 219 



Story of a White Blackbird. 



— v 

ALFRED DE MUSSET. 



i 

IT is a great thing, in this workaday world of ours, 
to be something a little above the common run of 
ordinary blackbirds, but then, too, the eminence is not 
without its inconveniences. I am not a bird of fable ; 
Monsieur de Buff on has written my description, but 
woe is me ! I am rare and but seldom met with. 
Would to Heaven I had never emerged from the 
lowly state in which I was born ! 

My father and mother were a couple of honest 
people who had lived for many years in the seclusion 
of a quiet old garden in the Marais. It was a model, 
household. While my mother, in the depths of some 
bushy thicket, laid three times a year regularly and 
hatched out her brood, gently slumbering most of the 
time, my father, very neat in his attire and very fussy 
still, notwithstanding his great age, would be pecking, 
pecking about her all day long, with patriarchal devo- 
tion, bringing her nice little insects that he was always 
careful to seize by the tail, very daintily, so that his 
wife's delicate stomach might not be offended, and at 
nightfall he never failed, when the weather was fme ? 



2 STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



to treat her to a song that delighted all the neighbor- 
hood. Never was there such a thing as a quarrel, 
never had the smallest cloud arisen to darken this 
sweet union. 

I had hardly made my appearance in the world 
when, for the first time in his life, my father began to 
display bad temper. Although as yet I was of only a 
doubtful shade of gray, he failed to recognize in me 
either the color or the form of his numerous progeny. 
Sometimes he would cock his head and look at me 
askance and say : 

" There is an untidy child for you ; it would seem 
as if the little blackguard took pains to go and wallow 
in every mud-hole and plaster-heap that he came to, 
he is always so ugly and filthy/' 

" Eh ! Mon Dieu, my friend," my mother would 
answer, looking like nothing so much as a little round 
ball of feathers in the old earthenware porringer where 
she had made her nest, " don't you see that it is owing to 
his age ? And you yourself, in your early days, were 
you not a charming little scapegrace ? Give our 
little blackbirdling time to grow, and you will see how 
pretty he will be ; I don't think that I ever hatched 
out a finer one." 

My mother was not deceived while pleading my 
cause in this manner ; she saw the growth of my ill- 
omened plumage, which appeared to her a monstrosity ; 
but she acted as all mothers do, who allow themselves 
to become more strongly attached to their offspring 
for the very reason that nature has ill-used them, as if 
the responsibility rested on the maternal shoulders, or 
as if they rejected in advance the injustice of their un- 
kind destiny. 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



3 



With the approach of my first moulting season my 
father became extremely thoughtful and watched me 
attentively. He continued to treat me with con* 
siderable kindness so long as my feathers kept falling 
out, and would even bring me something to eat when 
he saw me shivering, almost naked, in my corner, but 
as soon as th6 down began to come out on my poor 
little half-frozen wings, he would fly into such a tear- 
ing rage at every white feather he saw that I 
greatly feared he would leave me featherless for the 
remainder of my days. Alas ! I had no looking- 
glass ; I did not know the cause of his anger, and I 
wondered why it was that the best of fathers could 
treat me so cruelly. 

One day when a glimpse of sunshine and my grow- 
ing plumage had cheered me and warmed my heart a 
little in spite of myself, as I was hopping about an 
alley I began, tempted by my evil genius, to sing. At 
the very first note that he heard my father flew up into 
the air like a sky-rocket. 

" What do I hear there ? " he shouted. " Is that the 
way a blackbird whistles ? Do I whistle that way ? 
Do you call that whistling ? " 

And perching beside my mother with a most terrific 
expression of countenance : 

" Wretched bird ! " he said, " what stranger has 
been sharing your nest ? " 

At these words my mother indignantly threw 
herself from her porringer, severely injuring one 
of her claws in doing so ; she endeavored to 
speak, but her sobs choked her ; she fell to the 
ground in a half-fainting condition. I beheld her 
at the point of expiring ; terrified and trembling 



4 STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



with fear, I threw myself upon my knees before my 
father. 

" Oh, father ! " I said to him, " if I whistle but poorly 
and if I am meanly clad, let not the punishment fall 
upon my mother. Is it her fault if nature has not 
graced me with a voice like yours ? Is it her fault if 
I have not your beautiful yellow bill and your handsome 
black coat a la Frangaise, which give you the appear- 
ance of a churchwarden about to swallow an omelette ? 
If Heaven has seen fit to make me a monster and if 
someone must pay the penalty, grant, at least, that I 
alone may bear the burden of misery." 

" That has nothing to do with the case," said my 
father ; " what do you mean by taking the liberty of 
whistling in that ridiculous manner? Who was it that 
taught you to whistle thus, contrary to every known 
rule and custom ? " 

" Alas ! sir," I humbly replied, " I whistled as well 
as I knew how ; for I was feeling in good spirits be- 
cause the weather is fine, and perhaps I had eaten too 
many flies." 

" That is not the way they whistle in my family," 
my father rejoined, quite beside himself with 
anger. " We have been whistling for centuries from 
generation to generation, and let me tell you that 
when I raise my voice at night there is an old gentle- 
man here on the first floor, and a young grisette up 
there in the garret, who throw up their windows to 
listen to me. Is it not enough that my eyes are con- 
stantly offended by the horrid color of those idiotic 
feathers of yours, which make you look like a 
whitened jack-pudding at a country fair ? Were I not 
the most long-suffering of blackbirds I should have 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 5 



stripped you naked long before this and reduced you to 
the condition of a barnyard fowl prepared for the spit." 

" Very well ! " I cried, unable longer to submit to 
such injustice, " if that is the case, sir, never mind ! 
I will relieve you of my presence ; your eyes shall no 
more be offended by the sighfof these poor white tail- 
feathers by which you are continually pulling me 
about. I will go away, sir, I will take refuge in flight ; 
since my mother lays thrice a year there will be other 
children in plenty to console your declining years ; I 
will go and hide my wretchedness in some distant 
country, and it may be," I added, with a sob, " it may 
be that along the gutters or in the neighbors' kitchen- 
garden I shall find some earth-worms or a few spiders 
to enable me to eke out my miserable existence." 

" As you please," replied my father, far from melt- 
ing at this speech of mine ; " only let me never set 
eyes on you again. You are not my son ; you are not 
a blackbird." 

" What am 1 then, sir, if you please ? " 

4< I have not the slightest idea ; but you are not a 
blackbird." « 

With these crushing words my father strode slowly 
away. My mother sadly arose and went limping to 
her porringer to have her cry out, while I, for my 
part, confounded and disconsolate, stretched my wings 
and took my flight as well as I could, and went and 
perched upon the gutter of an adjoining house as I had 
said I w 7 ould do. 

II 

My father was so inhuman as to leave me several 
days in this mortifying situation. Notwithstanc}- 



6 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



ing his violent disposition his heart was in the right 
place, and I could see by his way of looking at me 
askant that he would have been glad to forgive and 
recall me to my home ; my mother, too, was con- 
stantly gazing upward at me with eyes that were full 
of tenderness, and now and then she would even ven- 
ture to address me with a plaintive little chirrup ; but 
my horrible white plumage inspired them, despite their 
better feelings, with a fear and a repugnance against 
which I clearly saw there was no remedy. 

" I am not a blackbird ! " I kept repeating to my- 
self ; and, in truth, as I was preening myself one 
morning and contemplating my form reflected in the 
water of the gutter, I saw only too clearly how little 
resemblance there was between me and the rest of the 
family. "Kind Heaven !" I said again, "teach me 
what I am ! " 

One night when the rain was coming down in bucket- 
fuls and I was getting ready to go to bed, quite worn 
out with grief and hunger, a bird came and sat down 
near me, wetter, paler, and more emaciated than I had 
believed bird could be. He was of something the 
same color as I, as nearly as I could judge through 
the torrents of rain that were streaming down on us ; 
he had scarcely sufficient feathers on his body to 
clothe a sparrow respectably, and yet he was a bigger 
bird than L At first I took him to be some poor, needy 
wanderer, but notwithstanding the storm that pelted 
pitilessly upon his almost naked poll he maintained 
a loftiness of demeanor that quite charmed me. I 
modestly made him a deep bow, to which he replied 
w T ithadig of his beak that nearly sent me tumbling off 
the roof. When he saw me scratch my ear and 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



7 



meekiy edge away from him without attempting to 
answer him in his own language, he asked in a hoarse, 
thick voice, to correspond with his bald pate : 
" Who are you ? " 

" Alas ! my noble lord," I replied (fearing that he 
might give me another dig), " I cannot tell. I thought 
that I was a blackbird, but I am convinced now that I 
am not." 

The strangeness of my answer, and my apparent 
truthfulness, seemed to interest him. He approached 
me and made me relate my history, which I did in all 
sadness and humility, as befitted my position and the 
unpleasantness of the weather. 

" If you were a carrier-pigeon like me," he said to 
me when I had finished, " the pitiful trifles that you 
are bewailing so would not disturb your mind an 
instant. We travel — that is the way we make our liv- 
ing — and we have our loves, indeed, but I don't know 
who my father is. Cleaving the air, making our way 
through space, beholding plains and mountains lying 
at our feet, inhaling the pure ether of the skies and 
not the exhalations of the earth, hastening to an ap- 
pointed destination that we never fail to reach, therein 
lie our pleasures and our life. I travel further in one 
day than a man can in ten." 

" Upon my word, sir," said I, plucking up a little 
courage, "you are a bird of Bohemia. 5 ' 

" That is something that I never bother my head 
about," he replied. " I have no country ; I know but 
three things : travel, my wife, and my little ones." 

But what is it that you have hanging about your 
neck there ? It looks like an old twisted curl-paper." 
They are papers of importance," he answered^ 



8 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



bridling up. " I am on my way to Brussels and 
I have a piece of intelligence for the celebrated 
banker . . . that will send the price of rentes down one 
franc and seventy-eight centimes." 

" Great Heavens!" I cried, "what a delightful 
life yours ought to be, and Brussels, I am sure, must 
be an extremely interesting city to visit. Can't you 
take me with you ? Perhaps I am a carrier-pigeon, 
since I am not a blackbird." 

"If you had been a carrier-pigeon," he rejoined, 
" you would have paid me back for the clip of the 
beak that I gave you a while ago." 

"We'll ! sir, I will pay you ; we won't quarrel over 
a little thing like that. See ! the day is breaking and 
the storm is passing away. Let me go with you, I 
beseech you ! I am undone, I have not a penny in the 
world — if you refuse me there is nothing left for me 
to do but drown myself in this gutter." 

"Very well ! en route ! follow me, if you can." 

I cast a parting glance upon the garden where my 
mother was slumbering. A tear fell from my eye ! it 
was swept away by the wind and rain. I spread my 
wings and started forth. 

Ill 

As I have said, my wings were not very strong as 
yet. While my guide pursued his flight with the speed 
of the wind I was puffing and panting at his side ; 
I held out for some' time, but soon was seized with 
such an attack of dizziness that I thought I should 
faint. 

"Have we far to go yet?" I asked in a weak 

voice. 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD, 



9 



"No," he replied," u we are at Bourget ; \v$ have 
but sixty leagues to go/' 

I tried to muster up courage, for I did not wish to 
show the white feather, and flew along for a quarter 
of an hour longer, but it was of no use, I was quite 
knocked up. 

" Monsieur," ■ I again stammered, "might we not 
stop for a moment ? I am tormented by a horrible 
thirst, and if we were just to perch upon a 
tree " 

" Go to the devil ! you are nothing but a black- 
bird ! " the pigeon responded in a rage and, without 
so much as turning his head, he continued his mad 
flight. As for me, everything grew dark before my 
sight and I fell, senseless, into a field of wheat. 

How long my unconsciousness lasted I know not. 
When I came to, my first recollection was the carrier- 
pigeon's parting remark : " You are nothing but a 
blackbird," he had said to me. " Oh ! my dear 
parents," I said to myself, " then you are mistaken, 
after all ! I will return to you ! you will recognize 
me as your true and lawful son and will let me have 
my place again in that dear little bed of leaves down 
beneath my mother's porringer." 

I made an effort to rise, but the fatigue of the jour- 
ney and the pain resulting from my fall paralyzed my 
every limb. Scarcely had I got upon my feet when 
my strength failed me again and I fell over on my 
side. 

Hideous thoughts of death were now beginning to 
arise before my mind, when I beheld two charming 
creatures advancing toward me on tip-toe through the 
poppies and cornflowers. One was a little magpie, 



io STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



very stylishly speckled and of extremely coquettish 
appearance, and the other was a turtle-dove of a rosy 
complexion. The turtle-dove stopped when she had 
approached within a few feet of me, with a great dis- 
play of modesty and compassion for my misfortune, 
but the pie came skipping up with the most pleasing 
manner in the world. 

" Eh ! B071 Dieu / my poor child, what are you 
doing there ? " she inquired in a merry, silvery 
voice. 

" Alas ! Madame la Marquise," I replied (for I 
thought that she must be a marquise at the very 
least), " lam a poor devil of a traveler whom his pos- 
tilion has abandoned here at the roadside, and I am 
ready to die of hunger." 

" Holy Virgin ! what is that you tell me ? " said she. 
And forthwith she began to flit about among the sur- 
rounding bushes, hopping from one to another and 
bringing me a great provision of berries and small 
fruits, which she deposited in a little pile at my side, 
continuing her fire of questions meanwhile. 

tk But who are you ? Where do you come from ? 
The storv of your adventure sounds incredible ! And 
where were you going ? To think of your traveling 
alone, at your age ; why, you are only just over your first 
moulting ! What is your parents' business ? Where 
do they belong? How can they let you go about in 
the condition that you are in ? Why, it is enough to 
make one's feathers stand on end ! " 

I had raised myself a little upon my side while she 
was speaking and was eating with a ravenous appetite. 
The turtle-dove had not stirred from her position and 
continued to eye me with a look of pity ; she re- 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



marked, however, that I would turn my head every 
now and then in a feeble sort of way, and saw that I 
was thirsty. Upon a leaf of chickweed there remained 
a drop of the rain that had fallen during the night ; 
she took it in her beak and timidly brought it and 
offered it to me ; it was deliciously cool and refresh- 
ing. Had I not been as ill as I was, a person of her 
modesty would certainly not have ventured thus to 
transgress the rules of propriety. 

As yet I knew not; what it was to love, but my 
heart was beating violently ; I was divided between 
two conflicting emotions and an inexpressible charm 
pervaded my being. My clerk of the kitchen was so 
lively, and my butler showed such gentleness and feel- 
ing, that I would gladly have protracted my break- 
fast to all eternity, but everything has an end, unfor- 
tunately, even the appetite of a convalescent. When 
the meal was ended and my strength had in a measure 
returned to me I appeased the little pie's curiosity, 
and related the story of my woes with the same candor 
that I had displayed the day before in telling them to 
the pigeon. The pie listened with a deeper interest 
than the recital seemed to call for, and the turtle-dove 
evinced a degree of sensibility that was most charming. 
When, however, I came to touch upon the final cause 
of all my sufferings, that is to say, my ignorance as to 
my own identity : 

" Are you joking ? " screamed the pie. " What you, 
a blackbird ! a pigeon, you ! Nonsense ! you are a 
pie, my dear child, if pie there ever was, and a very 
pretty pie, too," she added, giving me a little tap with 
her wing, as if it had been a fan. 

" But, Madame la Marquise,"! replied, " it seems to 



12 STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



me, respectfully begging your pardon, that I am not 
of the right color for a pie." 

" A Russian pie, my dear, you are a Russian pie ! 
Don't you know that they are white ? Poor child, 
how innocent you are ! " 

" But how could I be a Russian pie, madame," I 
rejoined, " when I was born down in the Marais in an 
old broken porringer?'' 

" Ah ! the simple child ! Your folks came here 
with the invasion, my dear ; do you suppose that there 
are not others in the same case as you ? Confide in me 
and don't allow yourself to worry ! I mean to carry 
you off with me right away and show you the finest 
things in the world." 

" And where to, dear madame, may it please you ? " 

u To my green palace, pretty one ; and you shall 
see the kind of life we lead there. When you shall 
once have been a pie for a quarter of an hour you 
will never want to hear tell of anything else. There 
are about a hundred of us there, not those great, 
common, village pies who make a business of begging 
on the highways, but all noble and of good family, 
spry and slender and no larger than one's fist. There 
isn't one of us that has either more or less than seven 
black and five white spots ; the rule is unalterable, 
and we look with contempt on all the rest of the world. 
It is true that you have not the black spots, but you 
will have no difficulty in gaining admission on account 
of your Russian descent. Our time is spent in two 
occupations: cackling and prinking ourselves. From 
morning until midday we prink, and from noon till 
night we cackle. Each of us selects a tree to perch 
upon, the tallest and oldest that he can find. In the 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD, 



midst of the forest is a great oak that is uninhabited 
now, alas ! It was the dwelling of the late king Pie 
X, and we make pilgrimages to it, heaving many a 
deep sigh ; but, apart from this transitory grief, our 
life is as pleasant as we could wish. Our women are 
not prudes nor are our husbands jealous, but our 
pleasures are pure and honest, because our hearts are 
as noble as our tongues are merry and unrestrained. 
Our pride is unbounded, and if a jay or any such 
common trash happens to intrude his company upon 
us we pluck him without mercy. For all that, how- 
ever, we are the most, good-natured people in the 
world, and the sparrows, the finches and the tomtits 
who live in our copses always find us ready to protect, 
feed and help them. Nowhere is cackling carried to 
greater perfection than among us and nowhere is 
there less scandal. There are plenty of bigoted old 
hen-pies who do nothing but say their prayers all day, 
but the friskiest of our young gossips can go right up 
to the severest old dowager and never get a scratch. 
To sum it all up, our life consists of pleasure, honor, 
chatter, glory, and the clothes we put on our backs." 

" That is very nice, indeed, ma'am," I answered, 
"and it would certainly be a piece of very bad 
manners on my part not to obey your orders. Before 
doing myself the honor of following you, however, 
permit me, I pray you, to speak a word to this good 
damsel here Mademoiselle," I continued, ad- 

dressing the turtle-dove, " I adjure you, speak frankly ; 
do you think that I am really a Russian pie ? " 

At this question the turtle-dove drooped her head 
and her complexion changed to a light red, like 
Lolotte's ribbons. 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



"Why, sir, I don't know if I can 

" Speak, mademoiselle, for Heaven's sake ! I con- 
template nothing that can possibly give you offense ; 
quite the reverse. You both appear so charming to 
me that I call Heaven to witness, here and now, that I 
will make offer of my heart and claw to either of you 
that will accept them, the very instant that I learn 
whether I am a pie or something else ; for," I 
added, lowering my voice a little to the young 
creature, u I feel an inexpressible turtle-dovish sensa- 
tion as I gaze on you that causes a strange disquietude 
within me." 

" Why, truly," said the turtle-dove, blushing more 
deeply still, "I don't know whether it is the sunlight 
striking on you through those poppies, but your 
plumage does seem to me to have a slight tint 
of " 

She dared say no more. 

" Oh, perplexity !" I cried, " how am I to know what 
to depend on ? how am I to decide to whom to give 
my heart when it is divided thus cruelly between 
you? O Socrates! how admirable was the precept 
that you gave us, but how difficult of observance, when 
you enjoined upon us : ' Know thyself ' ! " 

I had not tried my voice since that day when 
my most unlucky song had so disturbed my father's 
equanimity, and now the idea occurred to me of making 
use of it as a means whereby I might arrive at the 
truth. u Parbleu l" Y said to myself, " since mon- 
sieur my father turned me out of doors for the first 
couplet, it seems a reasonable enough conclusior. that 
the second should produce an effect of some kii^d on 
these ladies." So, making a polite bow to starf iv^th, 



STORY ®F A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



*5 



as if appealing to their indulgence on account of the 
cold that I had caught in the rain-storm, I commenced 
by whistling, then I warbled, then I diverted my 
audience with a few trills, and finally I set to singing 
in earnest, vociferously, like a Spanish mule-driver in 
a gale of wind. 

The little pie began to back away from me, and the 
louder I sang the further she retreated, at first with 
an air of surprise, which quickly changed to one of 
stupefaction, and finally terminated in a look of terror 
accompanied by deep disgust. She kept walking 
around me in a circle, as a cat walks around a piece 
of bacon, sizzling hot, against which she has burned 
her nose, but of which she thinks she would like to 
try another taste, notwithstanding. I saw how my 
experiment was turning out and wished to carry it 
to a conclusion, so, the more the poor marquise fretted 
and fumed, the more deliriously did I sing. She stood 
my melodious efforts for twenty-five minutes, but at 
last she succumbed and flew noisily away and retired 
to her palace of verdure. As for the turtle-dove, she 
had gone off into a sound slumber almost at the very, 
beginning. 

" Delightful effect of harmony ! " I thought. " Oh, 
my dear native marsh ! Oh, maternal porringer ! 
More than ever am I firmly resolved to return to 
you ! " 

Just as I was poising myself in readiness for flight 
the turtle-dove opened her eyes. 

" Farewell," she said, " pretty and tiresome stranger ! 
My name is Gourouli ; don't forget me ! M 

" Fair Gourouli/' I replied, " you are gentle, kind 
and charming ; I would like to live and <lie for you, 



1 6 S70RV OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



but you are of the color of the rose ; such happiness 
was never meant for me ! M 

IV 

The distressing results of my singing could not 
but sadden me. " Alas, Music ! alas, Poetry ! " I 
said to myself as I winged my way back to Paris, 
" how few are the hearts that are able to comprehend 
you ! " 

While pursuing these reflections I ran full tilt into 
a bird who was flying in a direction opposite to mine. 
The shock was so violent and so unexpected that we 
both fell into a tree, which, by great good luck, 
happened to be beneath us. When we had shaken 
ourselves and pulled ourselves together a bit, I looked 
at the stranger, fully expecting that there was going 
to be a quarrel. I saw with surprise that he was 
white ; his head was a little larger than mine, and 
rising from the middle of his forehead was a kind of 
plume that gave him an aspect half heroic, half comi- 
cal. He carried his tail very erect, moreover, in a 
manner that bespoke an excessive intrepidity of soul ; 
he did not, however, seem to be disposed to quarrel 
with me. We accosted each other very civilly and 
made our mutual excuses, after which we entered into 
conversation. I took the liberty of asking him what 
was his name and from what country he was. 

" I am surprised," he said, "that you do not know 
me. Are you not one of our people ?" 

"Truly, sir," I replied, "I know not of what race 
I am. Every one asks me that very question and 
tells me the same thing ; I think they must be carry- 
ing out a bet that they have made." 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 1 7 



"You are joking, surely," he replied ; "your plum- 
age sets too well upon you that I should fail to recog- 
nize a confrere. You indubitably belong to that illus- 
trious and venerable race that is known in Latin as 
Cacuata, in scientific nomenclature as Kakatoes, and in 
the vernacular of the vulgar as cockatoos." 

" Faith, sir, that may be, and it would be a very 
great feather in my cap were it so. But favor me by 
acting as if it were not the case, and have the con- 
descension to tell me to whom I have the honor of 
addressing myself." 

" I am the great poet Kacatogan," the stranger 
replied. " I have been a mighty traveler, sir, and 
many are the tiresome journeys that I have made 
through arid realms and ways of heaviness. I am 
not a rhymester of yesterday, and my muse has seen 
misfortune. I have sung love ditties under Louis 
XVI., sir ; I have brawled for the republic, sung the 
empire in noble strains, applauded the restoration 
guardedly ; even in these later days I have made an 
effort and bowed my neck to meet the demands of 
this unlettered age. I have given to the world spark- 
ling distichs, sublime odes, graceful dithyrambs, 
soulful elegies, stirring dramas, blood-curdling 
romances, vaudevilles in powder and tragedies in wig. 
In a word, I may flatter myself that I have added to 
the temple of the Muses some garlands of gallantry, 
some gloomy battlements and some graceful ara- 
besques. What would you more ? I have grown old 
in harness, but I keep on rhyming still with pristine 
vigor, and even as you behold me now I had my mind 
on a poem in one canto, to be not less than six pages 
long, when you came along and gave me that lump 



1 8 STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



on my forehead. Nevertheless, I am entirely at your 
service, if I can be of use to you." 

" To tell the truth, sir, you can," I replied, " for I 
am in great poetic tribulation just now. I won't 
venture to say that I am a poet, and, above all, a great 
poet like you," I added, with a low bow, " but nature 
has kindly fitted me with an organ that makes its ex- 
istence felt whenever I am joyous or sorrowful. To 
be entirely candid with you I am absolutely ignorant 
of all the rules of poetry." 

" You need not let that trouble you," said Kacato- 
gan ; " I myself have forgotten them." 

" But there is a very disagreeable circumstance con- 
nected with my case," I continued; " my voice pro- 
duces upon my hearers very much the same effect as 

did that of a certain Jean de Nivelle upon You 

know what I mean ? M 

" I know," said Kacatogan. " I have experienced 
that singular effect in my own person. The cause is 
unknown to me, but the effect is indisputable." 

" Very well, sir. Could you, who seem to me to be 
the Nestor of poetry, think you, suggest a remedy 
for this painful state of affairs ? " 

" No," Kacatogan answered ; "speaking for myself, 
I have never succeeded in finding one. When I was 
young it worried me exceedingly that I should be 
constantly hissed, but now I never think of it. I think 
that this opposition arises from the fact that the public 
read other works than ours : they seem to like to 
do so." 

" I am of your opinion; still, sir, you must admit 
that it is hard on a well-meaning creature that his 
audience should take to their heels the very moment 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



*9 



that he is seized by a fine inspiration. Would you do 
me the favor fo listen to me and tell me candidly what 
you think ? " 

" With the greatest pleasure in the world," said 
Kacatogan ; " I am all ears." 

I began to sing forthwith, and had the satisfaction 
of seeing that Kacatogan neither ran away nor went 
to sleep. He kept his eyes fixed intently on me and, 
every now and then, gave a little approving nod of 
the head accompanied by a low, flattering murmur. 
I soon perceived, however, that he was not listening 
at all and that his mind was on his poem. Taking 
advantage of a moment when I had stopped to 
breathe, he suddenly interrupted me. 

" Ah, that rhyme! I have found it at last !" he 
said, with a smile and a toss of the head ; " that makes 
the sixty thousand seven hundred and fourteenth that 
has emanated from this brain ! And yet people dare 
to say that I show the effects of age ! I am going to 
read that to those good friends of mine ; I am going 
to read it to them, and we'll see what they have to 
say ! " 

So saying he took flight and disappeared, seemingly 
oblivious of - the fact that he had ever met me. 

V 

Left thus solitary with my disappointment, there 
remained nothing better for me to do than profit by 
the daylight while it lasted and reach Paris in a 
single flight, if possible. Unfortunately I did not 
know the way ; my journey with the carrier-dove had 
been attended with too much discomfort to leave a 
distinct impression on my memory, so that instead of 



20 STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 

keeping straight on I turned to the left at Bonrget, 
and, the darkness descending suddenly upon me, I 
found myself obliged to look for a night's lodging in 

the woods of Morfontaine. 

When I reached there every one was making ready 
to retire for the night. The pies and jays, who, as is 
well known, are the worst sleepers on the face of the 
earth, were squabbling and wrangling on every side. 
The sparrows were squalling among the bushes, 
swarming and* treading one another underfoot. On 
the bank of the stream two herons, the George 
Dandins of the locality, were stalking gravely to and 
fro, perched on their tall stilts, patiently waiting for 
their wives in an attitude of profound meditation. 
Huge crows, already more than half asleep, settled 
heavily upon the tops of the tallest trees and com- 
menced to drone out their evening prayer. Below, 
the amorous tomtits were pursuing one another 
through the copses, while a disheveled woodpecker, 
marching in rear of his little household, endeavored 
to marshal it into the hollow of an old tree. Bat- 
talions of hedge-sparrows came in from the fields, 
whirling in the air like smoke-wreaths, and threw 
themselves upon a shrub which they quite concealed 
from sight ; finches, blackcaps and redbreasts 
perched airily upon the projecting branches in little 
groups, like the crystal pendants on a girandole. 
From every side came the sound of voices that said 
as plainly as could be : " Come, wife ! — Come, my 
daughter ! — This way, pretty one ! — Come here, dar- 
ling ! — Here I am, my dear !— -Good-night, dear mis- 
tress ! — Farewell, friends !— -Sleep soundly, children! " 

Imagine what a predicament it was for a bachelor 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



21 



to have to take up his quarters in an inn like that ! I 
thought that I would go to some birds of station simi- 
lar to my own and request their hospitality. All 
birds are gray in the dark, I said to myself, and 
besides, what harm can it do people to have a young 
fellow sleeping beside them if he behaves himself ? 

I first bent my steps toward a ditch where there was 
* an assemblage of starlings. They were just making 
their toilet for the night and were devoting the most 
scrupulous attention to it, and I observed that most of 
them had their wings gilded and wore patent-leather 
claws : they were evidently the dandies of the forest. 
They were good enough fellows in their way and did 
not notice me, but their conversation was so shallow, 
they displayed such fatuousness in telling one another 
of their broils and their love affairs, and they crowded 
together so coarsely that I could not stand it. 

Next I went and perched upon a limb where half-a- 
dozen birds of different kinds were sitting in a row. 
I modestly took the last place, away out on the end of 
the limb, in the hope that they would suffer me to 
remain there. As my ill-luck would have it my 
neighbor was a dove well on in years, as withered and 
juiceless as a rusty weather-cock on a church steeple. 
At the moment of my approach she was devoting an 
affectionate solicitude to the scanty feathers that 
covered her old bones ; she pretended to be smooth- 
ing them, bat she was too much afraid that she might 
pull one out to do that : she was only counting them 
over to see if they were all there. I barely touched 
her with the tip of my wing vvhen she drew herself up 
as majestically as you please. 

•:. " What are you doing here, sir ? " she cried, with a 



2 2 STORY OT A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



modesty that would not have disgraced the severest 
of British prudes, and giving me a great poke with 
her elbow she sent me tumbling from the branch with 
a vigor worthy of a railway baggageman. 

I fell into a brake where a big wood-hen was sleep- 
ing. My mother herself, in her porringer, never wore 
such a beatific air. She was so plump, so rotund and 
comfortable, with her well-filled stomach and her fluffy „ 
feathers, that one would have taken her for a pate 
from which the crust had been eaten off. I crept 
furtively up to her. " She won't wake up," I said to 
myself, " and even if she does, such a jolly, fat old 
lady can't help but be good-natured." She did not 
turn out as I expected, however. She lazily opened 
her eyes half-way, and heaving a faint sigh, said : 

" You are crowding me, young fellow ; clear out of 
here." 

At the same instant I heard my name called ; it 
was a band of thrushes up in the top of a mountain- 
ash who were making signals to me to come to them. 
" There are some charitable souls, at last," thought I. 
They made room for me, laughing as if they were 
crazy, and I slipped into the midst of the feathered 
group as expeditiously as ever you saw a billet-doux 
disappear in a muff. It soon became evident to me, 
however, that the ladies had been partaking of the 
fruit of the vine more liberally than was good for 
.them ; it was as much as they could do to keep them- 
selves from falling off their perches, and their equivo- 
cal pleasantries, their uproarious bursts of laughter 
and their indecent songs compelled me to leave their 
company. 

I was beginning to despair, and was about to search 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



23 



for some lonely corner where I might lay my head 
when a nightingale began to sing. Instantly silence 
reigned throughout the grove. Ah ! how pure was 
her voice ! Her very melancholy, how sweet did it 
appear ! Far from disturbing the slumbers of others, 
her tuneful strains seemed to soothe them. No one 
thought of bidding her be silent, no one took it ill that 
she selected that hour for singing her song ; her father 
did not beat her, her friends did not fly from her 
presence. 

" It is I alone, then," I cried, " to whom it is not 
given to be happy ! Let us go, let us fly from this 
cruel world ! Better is it to seek my way amid the 
shades of night and run the risk of making a meal for 
some wandering owl, than to linger here and have my 
heart lacerated by the spectacle of others' happiness ! " 

Upon this reflection I started forth, and for a long- 
time wandered without definite aim. The first light 
of breaking day revealed to me the towers of Notre 
Dame. Quick as a flash I reached them and from 
them scanned the horizon ; it was long before I 
recognized our garden. I winged my way to it, swifter 
than the wind. Alas ! it was empty. It was in vain 
that I called upon my parents : no one responded. 
The tree where my father had his seat, the bush, my 
mother's home, the beloved porringer, all had dis- 
appeared. The fatal ax had leveled all, and in place 
of the verdant alley where I was born there remained 
only a pile of firewood. 

VI 

The first thing that I did was to search through all 
the gardens of the neighborhood for my parents, but 



24 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



it was only labor lost ; they had doubtless taken 
refuge in some distant quarter and I never heard of 
them more. 

Sick at heart, I went and perched upon the gutter 
that had been my first place of exile when driven from 
my home by my father's cruelty. There I spent days 
and nights bewailing my sad existence ; I could not 
sleep, I ate scarcely anything ; my grief had nearly 
caused my death. 

One day when, as usual, I was giving way to my 
sorrowful meditations, I thought aloud and said : 

" So, then, I am not a blackbird, since my father 
pulled out my feathers ; nor a pigeon, since I fell by 
the way when I tried to fly to Belgium ; nor a Rus- 
sian pie, since the little marquise stopped her ears as 
soon as I opened my beak ; nor a turtle-dove, since 
Gourouli, even that good, kind Gourouli, could not 
help snoring like a trooper while I was singing ; nor a 
parrot, since Kacatogan would not condescend to 
listen to me ; nor a bird of any kind whatever, in 
fine, since they allowed me to sleep by myself at 
Morfontaine. And yet I have feathers on my body ; 
those appendages are claws, those are wings. I am 
not a monster, witness Gourouli and the little mar- 
quise herself, who seemed to look on me with eyes of 
favor. To what inscrutable reason is it owing that 
these feathers, : wings, and claws compose a whole that 
is nothing more nor less than a nameless mystery ? I 
wonder if I am not " 

I was pursuing my lamentations in this strain when 
I was interrupted by two women quarreling in the 
street. 

" Ay ! parbleu ! " one of them said to the other, "if 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD, 



25 



you succeed in doing it I will make you a present of a 
white blackbird ! " 

" Great Heavens ! " I exclaimed ; " that decides it. 
I am the son of a blackbird and I am white ; I am a 
white blackbird ! " 

This discovery, as may well be imagined, modified 
my ideas considerably. I at once ceased to bewail my 
fate and began to hold up my head and strut about the 
gutter, looking out on the world with the air of a con- 
querer. 

" It is no small matter to be a white blackbird, " 
said I to myself ; " you don't find them growing on 
every bush. It was a fine thing for me to do, forsooth, to 
grieve myself to death because I could find no one like 
me ; it is always so with genius ; it is my case ! It was 
my wish to fly from the world ; now I will astonish it ! 
Since I am that peerless bird whose existence is 
denied by the vulgar herd, it is my duty, as it is my in- 
tention, to bear myself accordingly and look down on 
the rest of the feathered tribe, with a pride as great as 
their vaunted Phoenix. I must buy myself Alfieri's 
memoirs and Lord Byron's poems ; those noble works 
will inspire in me a towering haughtiness in addition 
to that which God has endowed me with. Yes, if so 
it may be, I mean to add to the prestige which is mine 
by birth. Nature has willed that I should be rare, I 
will make myself mysterious. It shall be a favor, a 

glory, to look on me And why not, indeed," I 

added, lowering my voice, " exhibit myself, just simply 
for money ? 

" Fie on it ! What an ignoble thought ! I will 
write a poem, like Kacatogan, not in one canto, but 
in twenty-four, like other great men ; that is not 



20 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIR& 



enough ; there shall be forty-eight, with notes and 
an appendix ! The whole universe must know of my 
existence. I will not fail to make my verse tell the 
pitiful tale of my loneliness, but it shall be done in 
such a way that the happiest shall envy me. Since 
Heaven has denied me a mate I will defame most 
horribly the mates of all my acquaintance : I will 
demonstrate that all the grapes are green except 
those that are for my eating. Let the nightingales 
look out for themselves ; I will prove, as sure as two 
and two make four, that their complainings give rise 
to heart disease and that their wares are worthless. 
I must go and find Charpentier. First of all I want 
to make for myself a strong literary position. I mean 
to have a court around me, composed not of journal- 
ists alone, but of real authors, and even of literary 
women. I will write a role for Mile. Rachel and, if 
she declines to act it, I will trumpet it through the 
land that there are old actresses in the provinces who 
are her superiors in talent. 1 will go to Venice, and 
there, on the banks of the Grand Canal, in the heart 
of that fairy-like city, I will hire the beautiful Mocenigo 
Palace that costs four livres and ten sous a day ; there 
I will drink in the inspiration of all the memories that 
the author of " Lara " must have left there. From the 
depths of my solitude I will inundate the world with 
a deluge of terza rima, copied from the verse of 
Spenser, in which my great soul shall find solace ; 
the grove shall do me reverence, tomtits shall sigh, 
turtle-doves coo, woodcocks shed bitter tears, and all 
the old owls shriek enviously. As regards my per- 
sonal being, however, I will be inexorable and permit 
no amorous advances. Vainly will the unfortunate 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



2? 



females, who shall have been seduced by my sublime 
strains, approach me with prayers and supplications 
to have pity on them ; my only answer to it all will 
be : ' Pshaw ! ' Oh, glory without end ! My manu- 
scripts shall sell for their weight in gold, my books 
shall cross the sea ; fame and fortune shall pursue 
me everywhere ; I alone will appear indifferent to the 
murmur of the multitude that shall crowd about me. 
In a single word, I will be a perfect white blackbird, 
a veritable eccentric author, feasted, petted, admired, 
and envied, but always grumbling and ever insup- 
portable." 

VII 

It took me only six weeks to bring out my first 
work. It was, as I had determined it should be, a 
poem in forty-eight cantos. It is true that there 
were some passages that showed marks of hasty com- 
position, but that was owing to the prodigious rapidity 
with which it had been written, and I thought that the 
public, accustomed as it is to the fine writing that it 
finds in the feuilletons of the newspapers nowadays, 
would overlook such a trifling defect. 

My success was such as accorded with my merit, 
that is to say, it was unparalleled. The subject of my 
work was nothing other than myself ; in that I con- 
formed to the ruling fashion of our time. The egotis- 
tic unreserve with which I told the story of my late 
sufferings was charming ; I let the reader into 
the secret of a thousand domestic details of most 
absorbing interest ; the description of my mother's 
porringer alone filled no less than fourteen cantos. 
The description was perfect ; I enumerated every 



28 STORY OF A JVHITE BLACKBIRD. 



dent, chink, and cranny, every spot and stain, the 
places where it had been mended and its varying 
appearances under different lights ; I exhibited it 
inside and out, top, sides, and bottom, curves and plain 
surfaces ; then, passing to what was within, I made a 
minute study of the blades of grass, sticks, straws, and 
bits of wood, the gravel-stones and drops of water, the 
remains of dead flies and broken cockchafers' legs 
that were there ; the description was simply charming. 
Do not think, however, that I sent it to the press as 
an unbroken whole ; there are readers who would 
have known no better than to skip it. I cunningly 
cut it up into fragments which I interspersed among 
the episodes of the story in such a way that no part 
of it was lost, so that, at the most thrilling and dramatic 
moments, one suddenly came to fifteen pages of 
porringer. Therein, I think, lies one of the great 
secrets of our art, and as there is nothing mean about 
me, let anyone who is inclined to do so profit by it. 

All Europe was in a commotion upon the appearance 
of my book ; it greedily devoured the details of pri- 
vate life that I condescended to reveal to it. How 
could it have been otherwise ? Not only had I 
enumerated every circumstance that had the slightest 
bearing on my personality, but I gave to the public in 
addition a finished picture of all the idle reveries that 
had passed through my head since the time when I 
was two months old ; nay, I even inserted at the most 
interesting part an ode composed by me when in the 
shell. It may be supposed that I did not fail to 
allude cursorily to the great theme that is now occupy- 
ing the attention of the world ; to wit, the future of 
humanity. This problem had seemed to me to have 



STORY Of A WHITE &LACltBlRb. 



something of interest in it, and in one of my leisure 
moments I had roughly drafted a solution of it, which 
seemed to give general satisfaction. 

There was not a day that I failed to receive com- 
plimentary verses, congratulatory letters, and anony- 
mous declarations of love. As to callers, I adhered 
unflinchingly to the resolution that I had formed for 
my protection : my door was rigorously barred against 
all the world. Still, I could not help receiving two 
foreigners who had announced themselves as relatives 
of mine ; they were blackbirds both, one from Senegal, 
the other from China. 

" Ah ! sir," said they, with an embrace that nearly 
drove the breath out of my body, u what a great black- 
bird you are ! How well have you depicted in your 
immortal lay the pangs of unrecognized genius ! If 
we were not already as uncomprehended as possi- 
ble, we should become so after having read you. 
How we sympathize with you in your sorrow, in your 
sublime scorn for the vulgar ! We, too, dear sir, 
have reason to know something, of our own knowl- 
edge, of the secret griefs that you have sung so well. 
Here are two sonnets that we composed while coming 
hither and that we beg you will accept." 

u Here also is some music," added the Chinese, 
" that my wife composed on a passage in your pref- 
ace. It is marvelous in its illustration of the mean- 
ing of the author." 

" Gentlemen," I said to them, " so far as I can 
judge, you appear to me to be endowed with great 
depth of feeling and great brilliancy of intellect ; but 
pardon me for asking you a question. Why are you 
so sad ? " 



STOJv Y OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. v 

,l Eh, monsieur ! " replied the. traveler from Sene- 
gal. " just look at me and see how I am constructed. 
My plumage is pleasing to the eye, it is true, and I am 
dressed in that beautiful shade of green that shines so 
lustrously on the neck of the duck, but my beak is too 
small and my foot is too big, and just look at the 
ridiculous tail that I am tricked out with ! It is a 
great deal longer than my whole body. Is it not 
enough to tempt one to use profane language ? " 

u And look at me, too," said the Chinaman ; u my 
pitiable state is even worse than his. • My confrere 
sweeps the streets with his tail, but at me the little 
street urchins point their fingers because I have no 
tail at all." 

" Gentlemen," I rejoined, "I pity you from- the 
bottom of my heart ; it is always inconvenient to have 
too much or too little of anything, be it what it may. 
Allow me to suggest to you, however, that there are 
several persons very like you in the Jardin des Plantes, 
where they have been living very quietly for some 
time past, in a stuffed condition. Even as it does 
not suffice a woman of letters to cast her modesty to 
the winds in order to write a good book, so no black- 
bird can command genius merely by manifesting dis- 
content. I am the only one of my kind, and I am 
sorry for it ; I may be wrong, but I can't help it. I 
am white, gentlemen ; do you become white, too, and 
then we'll see what you have to say." 

VIII 

Notwithstanding all my resolutions and my 
affected calmness, I was not happy. My isolation 
seemed none the less hard to bear for being glorious, 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



and I could never think without a shudder of the 
cheerless prospect that lay before me of living all my 
life unmated, The return of spring, in particular, 
brought with it a mortal feeling of disquietude, and I 
was beginning to fall back into my old morbid state 
of mind, when an unforeseen circumstance occurred 
that shaped my future for me. 

It is unnecessary here to state that my writings had 
crossed the Channel, and that the English were quarrel- 
ing among themselves for copies. The English quarrel 
over everything except that which is comprehensible 
to them. One day I received a letter from London, 
from a young hen-blackbird. 

" I have read your poem," she said, " and the ad- 
miration that it inspired in me has induced me to 
make you the offer of my hand and person. God 
made us for each other ! I am like you ; I am a 
white blackbird ! " 

My surprise and delight may be readily imagined. 
A white hen-blackbird ! " I said to myself ; " can it 
be possible ? So, then, I am no longer alone upon the 
earth ! " I made haste to answer the fair unknown, 
and I did it in such a strain as showed how accepta- 
ble her proposition was to me. I urged her to come 
to Paris, or else permit me to fly to her. She re- 
sponded that she preferred to come to me, because 
her parents were plaguing her to death, that she was 
putting her affairs in order, and would be with me 
almost immediately. 

She arrived, in fact, a few days after her letter. 
Oh, joy ! she was the prettiest little blackbird in the 
world, and was even whiter than I was. 

" Ah ! mademoiselle," I cried, " or madame, rather, 



3^ 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



for from this moment I look upon you as my lawful 
wedded wife, is it possible that so charming a crea- 
ture can have been a dweller upon earth and the 
tongue of fame have never told me of her existence ? 
Blessed be the ills that I have endured and the peck- 
ings that my father gave me with his beak, since kind 
Heaven has had in store for me a compensation so 
unhoped-for ! Until this day, I believed myself con- 
demned to eternal solitude, and to speak you frankly, 
the burden was a heavy one to bear, but now that I 
look on you, I feel within me all the qualities requisite 
for a good father and husband. Let us not delay; 
accept my hand ; we will be married in English style, 
without ceremony, and start at once for Switzerland." 

" I don't look at the matter in that light," replied 
the young lady blackbird. u I mean that our espousals 
shall be celebrated in magnificent style and that all 
the blackbirds in France that have a drop of good 
blood in their veins shall be present in solemn con- 
clave. People of our quality owe it to their station 
not to marry like a couple of cats in a coal-hole. I 
have a store of banknotes with me ; get out your in- 
vitations, go to your tradesmen, and see that you don't 
skimp the refreshments." 

I followed implicitly the instructions of my white 
Merlette. Our wedding-feast was on a scale of un- 
paralleled luxury ; ten thousand flies were consumed 
at it. We received the nuptial benediction at the 
hands of a reverend Cormorant father, who was arch- 
bishop in partibus. The day was brought to an end 
by a splendid ball ; in a word, there was nothing 
wanting to complete my felicity. 

My love for my charming wife increased as I became 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



33 



better acquainted with her character and disposition ; 
in her small person all accomplishments of mind and 
body were united. The only blemish was that she 
was a little prudish in her notions, but I attributed 
that to the influence of the English fog in which she 
had been living until then, and I doubted not but 
that this small cloud would quickly melt away in the 
genial atmosphere of France. 

A matter that was cause to me of more serious un- 
easiness was a sort of mystery in which she would at 
times enshroud herself with strange inflexibility, shut- 
ting herself away under lock and key with her maids, 
and thus passing, as she pretended, whole hours in mak- 
ing her toilet. Husbands are not generally inclined 
to look with favor upon whims of this description in 
their family. Twenty times it had happened that I 
had gone to my wife's apartment and knocked and 
she had not opened the door. It tried my patience 
cruelly. One day, however, I was so persistent and in 
such a horribly bad temper that she was obliged to 
yield and unlock the door rather hastily, at the same 
time reproaching me for my importunity. As I 
entered my eyes alighted on a great bottle filled with 
a kind of paste made of flour and Spanish w^hite. I 
asked my wife what use she put that ointment to. 
She replied that it was a lenitive for frost-bites that 
she was troubled with. - 

It struck me at the time that there was something 
more about that lenitive than she chose to tell, but 
how could I distrust such a sweet, well-behaved 
creature, who had bestowed her hand on me with such 
gladness and perfect candor ? I had been ignorant 
at first that my wife was a literary character, but she 



34 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



admitted it after a while, and even went so far as to 
show me the manuscript of a novel for which she had 
taken Walter Scott and Scarron as her models. It 
may be imagined how pleased I was by such an agree- 
able surprise. Not only did I behold myself possessed 
of a beauty beyond compare, but I was now also fully 
assured that my companion's intellect was in all 
respects worthy of my gen^is. From that time forth 
we worked together. While I was composing my 
poems she would bescribble reams of paper. I used 
to read my poetry aloud to her, and that did not in 
the least disturb her or prevent her from going on 
with her writing. She hatched out her romances with 
a facility that was almost equal to my own, always 
selecting the most dramatic subjects, such as par- 
ricides, rapes, murders, and even small rascalities, and 
always taking pains *to give the government a slap 
when she could and inculcate the emancipation of 
female blackbirds. In a word, there was no obstacle 
of sufficient magnitude to daunt her intelligence, and 
she allowed no scruples of modesty to keep her from 
saying a brilliant thing ; she never erased a line and 
never sat down to her work with a plot arranged be- 
forehand. She was the perfect type of the feminine 
literary blackbird. 

She was working away one day with rather more 
than her usual industry, when I noticed that she 
was perspiring violently, and at the same time I was 
surprised to see that she had a great black spot right 
in the middle of her back. 

" Good gracious ! " I said, " what ails you ? Are 
you ill ? " 

She seemed a little frightened at first, and I even 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



35 



thought that there was a guilty expression on her 
face, but her habit of familiarity with the world 
quickly enabled her to regain the wonderful control 
that she always exercised over herself. 

" Is my wife losing her color ?" I asked myself in 
a frightened whisper. The thought haunted me 
and would not let me sleep. The bottle of paste 
arose before my memory. " Oh, heavens ! M I ex- 
claimed, " what a suspicion ! Can it be that this 
celestial creature is nothing more than a painting, a 
thin coat of white-wash ! Can she have made use of 
such a trick to deceive me ! When I thought that I 
was pressing to my heart the twin-sister of my soul, 
the privileged being created for my behoof alone, can 
it be that I was holding in my embrace but so much 
flour?" 

Haunted by this horrible suspicion, I devised a 
plan to relieve myself of it. I purchased a barometer 
and eagerly awaited the advent of a rainy day. My 
idea was to select a Sunday when the mercury was 
falling, take my wife to the country, and see what 
effect a good washing would have on her. We were 
in mid July, however, and the weather remained dis- 
^ustinoflv fair. 

My apparent happiness and my constant habit of 
writing had wrought my sensibilities up to a very 
high pitch. W r hile at work it sometimes happened 
to me, artless being that I was, that my feeling over- 
mastered my reason, and then I would abandon my- 
self to the luxury of tears while waiting for a rhyme 
to come to me. These infrequent occasions were a 
source of much pleasure to my wife ; masculine weak- 
ness is % spectacle that always affords pleasure to 



3* 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



feminine pride. One night when I was busy filing 
and polishing, in obedience to Boileau's precept, the 
flood-gates of my heart were opened. 

"O thou !" said I to my dear Merlette, "the only 
and most fondly loved one ! thou, without whom my 
life is but an empty dream, thou, in whose look, whose 
smile, the universe is as another world, life of my 
heart, knowest thou how I love thee ? It were easy 
for me, with a little study and application, to express 
in verse the hackneyed ideas that have already been 
employed by other poets, but where shall I find the 
glowing words in which to tell thee all that thy 
beauty inspires within my heart? Can the memory 
even of the suffering that is past supply me with 
language fitly to portray to thee the bliss that is 
present ? Before thou earnest to me my lonely state 
was that of a homeless orphan ; to-day, it is that of a 
king. Knowest thou, my beautiful one, that in this 
weak frame whose form I bear until it shall be stricken 
down in death, in this poor, throbbing brain where 
fruitless ideas are ceaselessly fermenting, knowest 
thou, dost understand, my angel, that there is not one 
atom, not one thought that is not wholly thine ? List 
to what my intelligence can say to thee and feel how 
infinitely greater is my love. Oh ! that my genius 
were a pearl and thou wert Cleopatra ! V 

While doting in this manner I was shedding tears 
over my wife, and her color was fading visibly. At 
every tear that fell from my eyes a feather became, 
not black, indeed, but of a dirty, rusty hue (I believe 
that she had been playing the same trick before some- 
where else). After thus indulging my tenderness for 
a few minutes I found myself in presence of an un- 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



37 



floured, impasted bird, in every respect exactly similar 
to a common, everyday blackbird. 

What could I do ? What could I say ? What 
course was left open to me ? Reproaches would have 
been futile. I might, indeed, have considered the 
marriage as void on the ground of false representa- 
tions and secured its annulment, but how could I en- 
dure to make my shame public ? Was not my misfor- 
tune great enough as it was ? I took my courage in 
my two claws, I resolved to quit the world, to abandon 
the literary career, to fly to a desert, could I find one, 
where never again might I behold living creature, and, 
like Alcestis, seek 

some lonely spot 
Where leave is granted blackbirds to be white. 

IX 

Thereupon I flew away, still dissolved in tears, and 
the wind, which is to birds what chance is to men, 
landed me on a branch in Morfontaine wood. At 
that hour every one was a-bed. " What a marriage ! " 
I said to myself, " what a catastrophe ! That 
poor child certainly meant well in getting herself up 
in white, but for all that I am none the less to be 
pitied, and she is none the less mangy." 

The nightingale was singing still. Alone in the 
silence of the night he was recreating himself with 
that gift of the Almighty that renders him so superior 
to the poet, and was pouring out, unhindered, his 
secrets upon the surrounding stillness. I could not 
resist the temptation of drawing near and speaking to 
him. 

" What a lucky bird you are ! " said I. k< Not only 



33 



STORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD. 



can you sing as much as you wish — and very well you 
do it, too, and every one is pleased to listen to you — 
but you have a wife and children, your nest, your 
friends, a comfortable pillow of moss, the full moon, 
and never a newspaper to criticize you. Rubini and 
Rossini are nothing compared to you ; you are the 
equal of the one and you interpret the other. I, too, 
sir, have been a singer, and my case is pitiable. 
While you have been here in the forest I have been 
marshaling words like Prussian soldiers in array of 
battle and dovetailing insipidities. May one know 
your secret ? " 

" Yes/' replied the nightingale, " but it is not what 
you think. My wife is tiresome ; I do not love her. 
I am in love with the rose : Saadi, the Persian, has 
mentioned the circumstance. All night long for her 
sake do I strain my throat in singing, but she sleeps 
and hears me not. Her petals are closed now and she 

has an old scarabee sheltered there and to-morrow 

morning, when I seek my bed, worn out with fatigue 
and suffering, then, then she will open them to receive 
a bee who is consuming her heart ! " 



A Visit to the Arsenal. 

— \/ 

ALPHONSE KARR. 



IN a spacious atelier are two young men ; one is 
standing before an easel and taking advantage of 
the last of the fading daylight, the other, stretched at 
length upon a great red divan, is nonchalantly smok- 
ing a long pipe and twirling in his fingers a letter of 
which the seal is yet unbroken. Both have their hair 
long and wear mustaches. To-morrow, perhaps, you 
will see them with close-cropped heads and lips, and 
the day after they will be starting a beard again be- 
neath the chin. 

" I don't know why it is," said the smoker, " that I 
hesitate to include this letter in tbe ^ate to which I 
have been condemning my other letters for the last 
two months. I can't help feeling sorry to burn it 
unread, the more that it is in my father's handwriting. 
I can guess very nearly what were the contents of the 
two missives that he addressed to me previously to 
this one. The first contained, necessarily, reproaches 
and threats, the second, probably, reproaches and 
good advice. I should not be surprised to find a 
money-order in this one. Parbleu ! " he added, after 
having glanced over the opening lines, tk I was not 

39 



40 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



mistaken : my banker is authorized to pay me a hun- 
dred francs." 

" A hundred francs !" exclaimed the other, laying 
down his brush. 

" A hundred francs," replied the smoker. 

u Well, well, fathers are not so black as they are 
painted ; as for me, I shall never have my daily 
bread until I can say : Our Father who art in 
Heaven." 

" In the mean time he gives me a very important 
bit of advice. My uncle at the Arsenal is ill, and he 
urges me to go and see him. It is an uncle with an 
inheritance to dispose of, and I have only been there 
once in the last three years." 

" That was not doing right." 

" It is an easy matter to be wise when other people 
are concerned. I will try to go to-morrow. I don't 
know the way very well, though." 

"I will make a map for you." 

" That will be nice." 

The morrow comes. 

" I am not going without my breakfast." 
"I would not advise you to." 
" Who is going out to get the breakfast? " 
" Not I ; I am in slippers." 

" Nor I ; I don't want to soil my boots before I 
start. Eugene, you are not a bit accommodating." 

" And you are not a bit just ; I did all the chores 
yesterday. To-day it is your turn." 

"See here, let us take the foils; the first one 
touched shall go out for the breakfast." 

They take down the foils, they fence ; Arthur is 
touched. It is settled that it is he who is to go for 



A Visit to the arsenal 



li- 



the breakfast, but since they have been at the trouble 
of taking down the foils, the masks and the gloves, 
they decide that they will not stop at a single bout. 
They fence for an hour. When they quit they are 
blown and as weak as two cats. 

" We must heat some water so that I can shave." 

" Yes, and you have let the fire go out." 

" It is easily lighted again. But we have no water," 

" What ! is the cistern empty already ? " 

" Yes ; I forgot to close the faucet last night." 

" The kitchen must be afloat ? " 

" It is but too true. I am glad that I noticed it 
before going downstairs." 

They breakfast, they put some water on the fire. 
While it is warming Eugene resumes work on his 
picture, Arthur takes his pipe and sprawls supine 
upon the divan. 

" Just see, Eugene," says he, " the time that I have 
wasted to-day ; I ought to be far on my way by this. 
This dawdling is decidedly a bad business ; no one 
would believe the injury that the liabit has caused me. 
Well did the philosopher say : t Do that which you 
would wish to have done rather than that which you 
wish to do.' " 

"That is all the more true in your case," said 
Eugene, taking a pipe and seating himself beside his 
chum, " that what you would wish to do, of all things 
in the world, would be to do nothing." 

" It is true that I look with scorn upon that uneasy 
restlessness which makes certain persons exert them- 
selves merely for the sake of exertion ; do something 
that is better than repose, or else keep yourself 
quiet." 



4* 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



" Just at present it would be better for you to finish 
dressing than to ' keep yourself quiet.' " 
" My water is not hot." 

The two friends puffed away at their pipes in silence 
for a moment ; then Arthur continued : 

" Not that I wish to say anything in defense of 
dawdling ; for, if you will remember, the exordium of 
my discourse was wholly opposed to it." 

" I shall not speak ill of it, either, for 

" Idleness is a gift that comes from the Immortals." 

The two friends had stored away in their noddles 
a stock of quotations which they used as aphorisms, 
producing them as the exigencies of the case seemed 
to demand. 

" But," continued Arthur, " laziness, in order to be 
pleasant, must be unattended by remorse and by dread 
of future consequences ; it must be without fear and 
without reproach ; one must have conquered the 
right to abanddn himself to it, body and soul ; 
for the only true laziness, what you may call 
loafing, pure and unadulterated, is that to which 
the body yields itself while the mind is chiding and 
reproving it." 

He arose and commenced his toilet. For a visit so 
rare as the one that he was about to make and where 
such important consequences were at stake, he thought 
it was his duty to lay aside the black cravat that he 
had worn uninterruptedly for several years. He 
accordingly folded a white one and laid it in readiness 
across the back of a chair, but when he had washed 
his hands he calmly wiped them on his cravat, never 
dreaming that that bit of white linen could be aught 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL, 



43 



else than a towel. When he perceived what he had 
done it was too late ; the neckcloth was all rumpled 
and soiled. He had to go and get another one ; he 
seated himself to fold it across his knee. But he was 
so comfortable, there upon the divan ! He resumed 
his pipe and began to smoke ; his head rested luxuri- 
ously upon the cushions. 

His state was one of languid torpor that fills the 
head with flitting thoughts, light and fanciful, that 
change their form or are dissipated into air at the 
slightest breath, like puffs of smoke ; that gives free 
rein to the imagination, which goes gadding, leaving 
the numbed body without strength either to follow or 
control it, like the bird which, escaping from the net, 
flutters about it and seems to mock the fowler, who 
looks amazedly upon its flight. 

Delightful state in which the / disappears, in which 
one stands by and looks upon his own life, its sensa- 
tions, its joys and sorrows, as if at a play, with the 
pleased unconcern of a comfortably seated spectator; 
in which one cannot evoke a melancholy thought that, 
in spite of his efforts to retain it, will not escape him, 
as water slips through one's fingers, and transmute 
itself into some ridiculous image which will dance be- 
fore him in the curling smoke-wreaths of his tobacco, 
laugh him in the face and compel him to be merry, 
whether he will or no. 

Arthur sets out at last, however. A man stops him 
on the staircase. 

" Is M. Arthur at home ?" 

" No, he is dead." 

The man descends the stairs before him, dum- 
founded. 



44 



A VISIT 7 THE ARSENAL. 



"Come, I'm mighty giad that that chap doesn't 
know me." 

He steers his course along the boulevards. There 
are many things to be seen on the boulevards on a 
day in March. The florists have the first hyacinths 
exposed upon their stalls, and they exhale an odor of 
spring. The women, at the first warmTays of sunshine, 
emerge from their furs, as the early flowers emerge 
from their green calices. 

He stops before a juggler ; the juggler is just com- 
mencing a trick that is more wonderful than all other 
tricks, but he does not finish it : he has some others 
that he wants to show first ; then he is presenting, 
gratis, cakes of Spanish white to clean brass- work with 
to those who purchase a box of his charcoal paste for 
the teeth for twenty sous. 

" This odontalgic and balsamic specific is a sovereign 
cure for decayed teeth. I propose to make a test of 
it in your presence, ladies and gentlemen. The first 
person that presents himself — come here, little boy. 
See, the teeth of this child are perfectly black ; you 
put a little of the powder upon a brush ; you moisten 
it with water ; and don't think that this is prepared 
water ; just plain water, the first that comes along, the 
water of the gutter ; you rub the teeth and the gums 
with it." 

Still there is no sign of the trick that has been 
announced in such glowing terms ; Arthur, who has 
been waiting half an hour, loses patience and starts 
to go, but the juggler runs after him and calls to him : 

" Monsieur ! Monsieur ! " 

Every eye is directed upon Arthur. He becomes 
red in the face and stops. 



4 VISIT TO THE ARSENAL 



45 



"Monsieur," says the juggler, "why do you carry 
away my globes ! I cannot earn my living without 
the implements of my profession." 

The people form a ring. about Arthur, who, purple 
with rage, exclaims : 

" I have not got your globes ; go about your busi- 
ness." 

" I beg Monsieur's pardon a thousand times, but he 
has my giobes in his hat." 

The juggler takes off Arthur's hat and extracts 
from it three immense balls. The trick is adroitly 
done ; the people look on admiringly. Arthur feels 
like thrashing the conjurer, and takes to his heels. 
The skeptically inclined smile and say : 

" He is an accomplice ! " 

Further on is a man peddling phosphorus boxes. 

"Here you have the genuine inflammable paste. 
You have no need of ready-made matches ; all you 
have to do is to take the least little bit of my paste on 
the end of a knife, on the end of your cane, on the end 
of anything you please, no matter what ; the least 
contact with a lamp-wick serves to light it at once. 

" To say nothing of its utility, my inflammable 
paste is a source of innocent and entertaining amuse- 
ment, an incentive to merriment and enjoyment in 
society. You are out spending the evening — at a 
minister's house, we will say ; an awkward fellow 
attempts to snuff the candle and puts it out ; result, 
Egyptian darkness. Everyone has something funny 
to say ; the young men take advantage of the obscurity 
to kiss the pretty girls, but what do you do ? You 
take out your little box, that you always carry about 
with you in your pocket ; you bet the mistress of the 



4 6 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



house a quart of wine, red or white, that you will light 
the candle." 

Arthur goes his way ; a man seizes him by the coat- 
collar and stops him. This man has before him a 
screech-owl and three harmless little adders ; venomous 
serpents, he says they are, that he has domesticated. 
Several small birds, lying stiff and motionless upon 
their backs, have been taught to simulate death. If 
he allowed you to touch them you would see how easy 
it is for them to do the trick. This man is selling soap 
for taking out grease-spots. Vainly does Arthur try 
to get away from him, his enemy will not let go his 
hold ; a crowd collects about them. 

" I never set eyes on such a disgusting grease-spot 
as that which disfigures the collar of monsieur's over- 
coat." 

Arthur gives the grease-spot-man a thump in the 
stomach that sends him and his table rolling on top 
of the birds and reptiles, animate and inanimate, and 
then gives leg-bail again ; to evade the inquisitive 
looks that pursue him he enters, at hazard, a street 
that is unknown to him ; it takes him into another 
street, and that into still another. Arthur is lost ; he 
wanders aimlessly, he turns this way and that; finally 
he asks a commissionaire where he is; he finds that he 
has traversed half the distance on his way back to his 
lodging. 

" It is my uncle's dinner hour ; I won't go there 
to-day, I will go home." 

The next day Arthur arose very early. He lost a 
frightful amount of time, the day before, in heating 
water to shave with ; to-day he will shave with cold 
water. He has on his feet two slippers, one his, the 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



47 



other Eugene's, one yellow, the other red ; his cos- 
tume is completed by an old pair of black trousers 
covered with stains of paint and a nightshirt. 

The soap does not dissolve readily in the cold water ; 
it becomes sticky and slippery, and when he tightens 
his grasp in order to hold it, it flies from his fingers 
just as one discharges a cherry-pit from between the 
thumb and index. 

Arthur stoops and places his hand upon it ; the 
soap slips from his fingers and disappears beneath the 
sofa. He takes a cane and pokes about with it under 
the sofa ; the cane hits the soap and sends it out 
flying ; the door is open and the soap makes its way 
out ; Arthur follows in hot pursuit, but it skips across 
the landing and slipping, slipping all the time, hops 
downward from floor to floor ; twice Arthur overtakes 
it and tries to stop it with his foot, but it only de- 
scends the faster. Arthur makes his way down as 
quickly as his slippers will permit ; he passes a woman 
and child and comes near upsetting them ; he tears 
one of the sleeves of his shirt completely off against 
a clothes-hook. The soap has brought up in the 
court at last ; Arthur is about to seize it when a ser- 
vant-girl, who has been washing clothes at the pump, 
empties her pail, and the minature flood carries the 
soap out beneath the porte cochlre. 

" Door, if you please ! " 

Arthur steps outside and picks up his soap from 
between a horse's legs, but people in the street stop 
and stare at him. He makes haste to re-enter the 
house ; on every landing he encounters neighbors 
who have come out of their rooms to learn the cause 
of the racket that he made in descending. Some of 



4 8 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



them laugh, others shrug their shoulders. When at 
last he reaches the top floor, he finds the door of the 
studio closed. He is about to knock, but hears a 
child crying and a woman scolding within. 

" Be quiet ; it will all* be over in an hour and we 
will go away." 

" Ah ! Good Heavens ! it is that frightful little 
boy whose portrait Eugene is painting. I can't show 
myself in this condition. What is to be done ? An 
hour in a ragged shirt, and in such weather as this ! 
If I only had a pipe ! " 

Arthur almost walks his legs off, tramping up and 
down. When he has exhausted this slightly monoto- 
nous pleasure he climbs out at a window, gets upon 
the roofs, and goes and warms himself at the smoke of 
a neighboring chimney. The hour passes wearily, but 
it is too late to go to see the uncle ; there is another 
day wasted. 

Arthur scarcely sleeps at all during the night so 
that he may be sure of awaking bright and early the 
next morning. He reflects upon the excuses that he 
will make to his uncle for not having been to see him 
for so long a time. At morning he awakes ; the 
daylight enters his room, dark and rainy. 

" Come, it is raining ; I will not go out." 

When one is warm and snug in bed the least thing 
seems to be a sufficient excuse for remaining there. 
And still Arthur is mistaken ; it is not raining. His 
misapprehension is caused by a blue curtain that 
Eugene has hung before the window. There is 
nothing so depressing and so deceptive as light pass- 
ing through a blue curtain ; one should never have 
blue curtains. 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



49 



It does not rain ; quite to the contrary, it is clear. 
When Arthur gets up it is late. The sun is beginning 
to be more powerful ; his rays give color to the roofs, 
which seem to rob them of their brilliancy. 

From the terrace in front of the studio a few square 
feet of sky are visible, but the little that the friends 
do see is of a beautiful, transparent blue ; the air that 
they breathe is balmy and penetrating ; that is as 
much as people who dwell in cities know of spring. 
The most magnificent festivals of nature, to the 
townsman, are no more than what the distant har- 
monies of the ball would be to the poor wretch 
dying of cold and hunger at the door of a splendid 
mansion. 

It is enough, however, to set them thinking that the 
trees must be commencing to put forth their leaves, 
that the beeches and the maples, together with the 
hawthorn, are the first to assume their cloaks of 
green, that the cherry trees, by this time, must be 
nodding their rich plumes of white blossoms and that 
the birds of winter have hushed their thin, sharp 
notes, and the linnet, in the young foliage of the lilacs, 
is giving utterance to his full, resounding melodies. 
Upon the banks of the brooks the yellowish catkins 
of the willows must be bourgeoning, while around 
them are buzzing the first bees of the season. 

Says Arthur to Eugene : 

" We must be thinking what we shall do about our 
garden." 

Their garden consists of three long wooden boxes 
stationed upon the terrace. 

** What shall we plant in our garden this year? " 
"I don't want any more vegetables, for my part; 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



your salad last year was detestable ; besides, we ought 
to have a little shade." 

" How would you like a few full-grown trees and 
some shrubbery ? " 

" That wouldn't be so bad." 

" Then why shouldn't we set out some firs ? That 
would be splendid." 

" Joking apart, it seems to me that we live high 
enough up that no one can dispute our right to have 
a few cedars here ; the cedar takes kindly to the moun- 
tains." 

" I want flowers ; I shall plant some pinks and red 
roses that Rene d'Anjou was the first to exhibit in his 
gardens." 

" He was also the first one who cultivated the 
Muscat grape." 

" If you believe what I say, we are just as likely to 
have vines as we are to have forests. "- 

"Have it your own way." 

" Do you know that to have one's name handed 
down to posterity in connection with a flower is as 
great a glory as the best ? " 

Eugene is alone in the atelier, alone, that is, with 
a model who neither speaks nor stirs. Arthur has 
started out early ; there is every reason to hope that 
this time he will succeed in reaching the Arsenal. 

Eugene is talking to himself. While painting away 
industriously he gives himself bits of good advice, 
heaps reproaches on himself, occasionally indulges 
himself with a few words of approval ; he imitates 
the words and tones of the master under whom he 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



5* 



pursued his studies and intersperses this monologue 
with moral reflections. 

" Be careful how you use your bitumen. Why are 
you painting without a hand-rest ? Where the devil 
are my hand-rests, any way? I shall never find my 
hand-rests. I ought to have an apprentice to bring 
me my rest. One is never so ill served as when he 
serves himself. Ah ! you call that a hand-rest, do 
you ? Why don't you take the axle of a cart and have 
done with it ? There is a lighted candle, very well ; 
but what does your precious candle serve to illumi- 
nate ? Why don't you put in some lights, then ? You 
dare not, you are afraid. There, there, a little bit 
more. Ah! now your candle lights things up. Don't 
be too free with the bitumen. A little vermilion here. 
Come, come ; where is my vermilion ? Who has taken 
my vermilion ? Tell me, George," he says to the 
model, " have you been eating my vermilion ? I 
must have some vermilion. There is green, but that 
is not the same thing. If I had an apprentice he 
would hunt for my vermillion for me. Really and 
truly, I must have an apprentice. Economy is the 
mother of all the vices. Ah ! here is my vermilion ! 
I wonder who the devil conceived the idea of putting 
it into a helmet? Nothing is ever in its place here, 
everything is always topsy-turvy. Who the devil 
took it in his head to put my vermilion in a helmet ? 
The idea of looking for it in a helmet ; I know very 
well that I placed it in a ridingrboot. Come," says 
he, still talking to himself, " perhaps you call that an 
eye ; if you were to look at the model you would 
not disgrace yourself with such idiotic blunders. 
What does that great imbecile eye mean ? Bring 



5- 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



down the eyeball a little ; there, so ; a little 
more." 

Then he sings : 

" What a difficult thing it is to paint ! 
I shall never be more than a tyro. 

u If your picture as a whole is anything like that leg, 
to give you your due, it will be the very worst picture 
in the salon, and you might as well subscribe it : 
Grocer pinxit. Don't abuse the bitumen, I say again. 
Come, George, you may take a rest ; I am going out. 
I will be back in an hour and a half ; if any one comes 
and inquires for me, tell him I have gone to discover 
the sources of the Niger." 

Eugene leaves the house. A few minutes after he 
has gone a commissionaire comes up the stairs and asks 
for Eugene. George, who is smoking Levant tobacco 
in a Turkish pipe, sends him away with his letter. 

That letter is from Arthur. This is what has hap- 
pened him : 

He left the house, as we have said, bright and early ; 
he felt hungry and went into a cafe ; when he came to 
leave he found that he had no money. He gave an 
order for something to be served him and wrote to 
Eugene to look for his purse and send it to him. 

The commissionaire returns, bringing back his letter. 
How is he to pay for what he has eaten and drunk at 
the cafe ? He cannot leave the cafe without settling 
his check, he cannot discharge the commissionaire 
without paying him. His only course is to keep the 
commissionaire underpay and remain at the cafe ; he 
sends the man to a friend and calls for his fifth glass 
of sugar and water. 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



53 



" What am I to do if the commissionaire does not 
find Robert at home ? I must pay the man, I must 
pay my bill Jiere. It is extremely embarrassing." 

A woman passes along the street before the windows 
of the cafe ; Arthur rushes to the door, hat in hand ; 
this woman that he has just caught sight of has a 
strange hold upon his imagination. The reason why 
is this : 

Coming out of a bric-a-brac dealer's shop into the 
street one day, carrying in his arms two plaster figures, 
an antique helmet and a Chinese parasol, Arthur had 
encountered face to face a woman whose beauty had 
produced a deep impression on him. These sudden 
impressions are more than an empty dream. A single 
glance served to render Arthur enamored, miserable, 
jealous. He came near letting the plaster figures 
fall from his arms ; he wished to follow the fair un- 
known, but loaded as he was like a porter and his 
clothes filthy with dust and plaster, he was quickly 
compelled to abandon this project. 

For three days he was melancholy and thoughtful. 
There was one thing that particularly annoyed him ; 
the impression that he had produced on that woman's 
mind must have been diametrically opposite to that 
which he had received from her. His equipment had 
been ridiculous, the expression of his admiration 
stupid. For two weeks he never went out without 
being dressed to kill ; if a new play was brought out 
he would goto witness it, if a ray of sunshine pierced 
the gray clouds of November he would go and walk 
in the Tuileries gardens, peering under all the bonnets 
in quest of the blue eyes of his fair one. He wished 
to correct the unfavorable impression that he thought 



54 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



he must have produced and place himself in her eyes 
on a level, at least, with indifferent acquaintances and 

persons whom she had never seen. 

Two months after that he had caught sight of her 
a second time at a concert, but she was seated at a 
distance from him and with all his efforts he had not 
been able to attract her attention to his person, which 
on that occasion was magnificently attired and per- 
fectly seductive. Upon returning home he had drawn 
her portrait from memory, and the constant contem- 
plation of this picture had contributed in no small 
degree to the nourishment of a passion that had begun 
to assume extravagant proportions. Since then he 
had never met her again, although he had spent much 
time prowling in quest of her. At times he had 
followed strange women for hours on end, believing 
that he discerned some resemblance in form or car- 
riage to his inamorata, or else because they chanced 
to wear a blue shawl. On the only two occasions 
when he had seen her she had sported a great cash- 
mere of that color. 

He was very assiduous in paying his court to the 
likeness, however, and every time that he came in 
would place a handsome bouquet before it. Through 
constantly seeking and never finding her he had 
reached such a degree of adoration that, had he 
chanced to meet her and succeeded in gaining her 
love, his love for her would not have lasted long. 
He had placed his idol upon such a lofty pedestal 
that she could not have come clown from her eleva- 
tion without doing herself a harm. Given a certain 
amount of imagination and a sufficiency of obstacles, 
it is always possible to adore a woman ; to love her 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



55 



is not so easy a matter. The majority of women are 
adored only because they cannot make themselves 
loved. 

Not that we would decry illusions, far from it ; we 
have often thought that there is nothing beautiful and 
exalted in life but that which has no existence there ; 
that is to say, life in its naked reality, stripped of the 
bright hues that are thrown on it through the prism 
of the imagination, is not worth the living and is like 
the butterfly whose wings, rudely crumpled by some 
rough hand, have lost their brilliant golden dust. 

To destroy illusion is to limit the world to our own 
narrow horizon, it is to restrict the circle of our sen- 
sations within the grasp of our outstretched hand ; it 
is as if we should follow the example of the Spartan 
ephor and cut two strings from the lyre, or that of the 
tyrant of Syracuse and throw our most costly ring 
into the sea, or disfigure ourselves like Origen. 

So, then, when Arthur recognized the great blue 
eyes of his fair unknown beneath a black hat and 
through a veil of the same color he had dashed to 
the door of the cafe, but just as he was on the point 
of passing out he suddenly remembered that he had 
not paid, and could not pay, for what he had con- 
sumed, and he reflected that were he to leave the 
place, particularly in that hurried manner, he would 
inevitably be taken for a Jeremy Diddler who had 
endeavored to make his breakfast at the expense of 
the restaurateur. 

He returned to his place, called for a sixth glass 
of sweetened water and made believe to read a news- 
paper. 

At last a man came into the cafe with a laughing 



56 



A VISIT TO THE ARSEiXAL. 



face ; it was the friend to whom Arthur had written 
to come and get him out of his scrape. He offered 
his purse, and Arthur paid off the commissionaire 
and settled for his countless glasses of sugar and 
water. 

" My dear friend," says the newcomer, "since I 
have paid for your breakfast you must let me set up 
the grub for the rest of the day as well, and come and 
sup with us." 

Circumstances resulting from the encounter with 
this friend, an amour which ended in a journey, a 
journey which ended in a quarrel, a quarrel which 
ended in a return home, all these things consumed a 
great deal of time. 

^fter these events, while en route ^ Arthur devotes 
his thoughts to his unknown, and upon returning to 
his studio removes the bouquet, long since faded, that 
adorned her portrait and replaces it by a fresh one of 
pink heather and golden broom. 

" Parbleu ! " says Arthur, " I must go and see my 
uncle." 

Eugene was going out to his solitary dinner just as 
Arthur came in. 
« Well?" 
" Well ? :? 

" Have you seen your uncle ? " 
" No." 

" How is that ?" 

" The boulevard has been playing its old tricks on 
me. I stopped to see a giantess ; she was a Pole at the 
time of the Polish war, a Belgian during the siege of 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



57 



Antwerp. Here's what I read upon the hand-bills : 
1 The king, having heard tell of her marvelous beauty, 
desired to see her, and declared that she was rightfully 
entitled to her surname of Queen of the Giants/ 
Encouraged by the royal suffrage, I entered the show 
and had the honor of receiving the distinguished 
notice of the Queen of the Giants. " 
« Ah ! " 

" In presence of all the assembled spectators she 
said to me : ' If monsieur, who is of goodly stature, 
will kindly come and stand beside me, it will be seen 
that he does not reach my shoulder.' I scrambled to 
her platform and gravely perched myself at her side 
as long as she saw fit to keep me there. Ah ! " says 
Arthur, with a sigh, " I saw something that interested 
me more than that. I had stopped where a juggler 
was carrying on his industry ; he was in need of a 
watch for a transformation. I loaned him mine, and. 
I assure you that the trick was a very comical one, 
but as I was watching his operations a woman passed, 
wrapped in a camel's- hair shawl. That woman was 
my unknown ; I determined to follow her ; she was 
proceeding along the boulevard in just the same 
direction that I should have to take to go to my uncle's, 
but I could not leave my watch in the juggler's hands. 
I stepped up to him : 

" < My watch ' 

" * In one moment, sir.' 

" * I want to go.' 

" 1 It is only a matter of five minutes.' 
" f I have not one to spare.' 

" The ring of spectators murmur and inveigh 
against me. 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



" 1 Are you afraid that I am going to steal your 
watch ? " 

" ' You are a rascal/ 

" ' Well, I placed it in that cup ; take it/ 

" I put my hand into the cup and extract a great 
onion. Every one laughs ; I turn all the colors of the 
rainbow and again demand my watch ; I secure it and 
take to my heels, but the unknown has disappeared. 
If she had kept to the boulevard I should have seen 
her, for the street pursues a straight course ; a cab 
has just started, I follow it, I run after it. I must be 
born to ill-luck ; the horse was a perfect trotter. At 
last I came up with it, quite spent and breathless, but 
it contained only a man in blue spectacles ! " 

Arthur received a letter from his father; in it was 
the following passage : 

"Send me word how your uncle is, who was said to 
be in such a bad way ; I do not ask if you have seen 
him, for your feelings, our interests, common human- 
ity, not to mention my reiterated instructions to you, 
all combined to make that visit an imperative 
duty." 

" I will go to-morrow even if it should rain old 
women ! " exclaimed Arthur. 

Six weeks afterward, Arthur managed to reach the 
Arsenal ; his uncle's house was draped with black, the 
corpse had just been deposited in the hearse, the peo- 
ple were entering the mourning-coaches. Arthur was 
thunderstruck ; still, a few moments' reflection showed 
him that what had happened was only a very ordinary 
occurrence, and entirely in accordance with the natural 
course of events. 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



59 



Three persons, whose countenances were not un- 
known to him, signaled him an invitation to enter the 
last coach with them ; Arthur took his seat and fol- 
lowed the procession, first to the church, then to the 
cemetery, without uttering a word ; he could not, 
however, master some remorseful feelings that he had 
not been with his uncle in his last moments. They 
reached the burial-place ; after that ceremony, that is 
ever a sad one, even for those not directly concerned, 
after they had lowered the coffin into the grave and 
had strewn upon it a few shovelfuls of earth that fell 
with a hollow sound upon the box of pine, a gentle- 
man dressed in black came forward, blew his nose, and, 
in a voice that trembled, as much from the embarrass- 
ment of speaking in public as from grief, pronounced 
the eulogy of the deceased. 

This face also was not unfamiliar to Arthur ; it 
occurred to him that this young man, more for- 
tunate than he, or less hare-brained, was his uncle's 
heir. 

" Gentlemen," said the orator, " when we speak of 
death, it may be said that it is those who remain that 
feel the affliction most keenly ; the friend whose loss 
we mourn is gone above to occupy that place in 
heaven that his virtues have earned for him, while we 
remain here below to shed our tears for him." 

" There is no doubt about it," thought Arthur ; 
" my uncle has left him his Bayeux property." 

" No one," continued the heir. " obeyed more im- 
plicitly this precept of the Gospel : ' Let not thy left 
hand know that which thy right hand doeth.' It is for 
that reason that the poor, not knowing whence came 
the numerous benefactions that he scattered with 



6o 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



a lavish hand during his lifetime, have not trooped 
hither to bedew this earth with their tears." 

" He has got the Paris mansion, too," said Arthur 
to himself. 

" To some his mental faculties appeared to be 
deteriorating ; the reason was that his life upon this 
earth was ended and he was entering upon the child- 
hood of another life." 

" I would not give five sous," Arthur mutters, 
" for all that my uncle has left me of his government 
bonds." 

"It was the childhood of immortality." 

" Even the canal shares have been taken from me." 

They climbed into the carriage again. Arthur's 
three companions conversed about their business 
affairs ; Arthur said not a word. He was saddened 
by the funereal scene, and also, if the truth was to be 
told, by the consideration that the labor of a lifetime 
would not replace the inheritance that he had lost 
through his own folly. He left the coach and con- 
tinued his way on foot. As he was crossing the 
boulevard some persons had stopped (and who has 
not sometimes stopped for a more trifling circum- 
stance ?) to watch a postilion mending a broken trace. 
Arthur mechanically halted like the others. As he 
was surveying the operation a man tapped him on the 
shoulder ; he turned his head ; it was his uncle. 
Arthur turned pale and for a moment was frozen with 
terror and incapable of motion ; then he threw his 
arms about his dear uncle's neck and embraced 
him. 

" I would rather have you embrace me more fre- 
quently and less violently, " said the uncle. 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL, 



61 



Arthur embraced him again, but there was some- 
thing convulsive in his action. 

" What ! it is you, you that I have here in my arms ! 
But it can't be ! " 

" It is as plain as can be ; I am on my way to Bay- 
eux to spend the summer." 

" But, uncle, I am just come " 

" From a visit to me, you were going to say ? They 
have been burying poor Dubois, my neighbor, whom 
you have seen at my house so many times." 

" What ! then it was not you ? " 

u I ? What do you mean ? " 

" I have been lamenting you and sheddi'ng tears for 
you for the last four hours." 

The uncle burst out into a great fit of laughter. 

" I am going to Bayeux to attend the wedding of 
your cousin ! " 

" Which cousin ? " 

" The daughter of your mother's sister, my second 
sister ; she has been living with me during the past 
year." 

" Aunt Marthe's daughter ? " 

" Exactly ; she does not know her future husband, 
but I have arranged it all by letter ; she will be very 
happy." 

The postilion had finished his repairs ; the uncle 
took his place in the chaise and said : 

" Kiss your cousin's hand, whom you will never see 
again, in all probability, for her husband means to 
live upon his property, where he is making improve- 
ments." 

Arthur kissed a little hand that emerged from the 
window of the chaise upon the bidding of the uncle, 



62 



A VISIT TO THE ARSENAL. 



then raised his eyes and beheld the pretty face of the 
stranger of the blue cashmere. She was still wrapped 
in the folds of the blue shawl ; the chaise started and 
Arthur remained standing there, seeing nothing, 
hearing nothing, until it was lost among the mists 
that rise from the ground with the decline of day. 



THE 

Thousand and Second Night. 

THEOPHILE GAUT1ER. 



1HAD given orders that day to deny my door to 
every one ; having made a solemn resolution that 
morning that I would do nothing, 1 did not wish to 
be disturbed in that important occupation. With a 
feeling of confidence that 1 should not be bothered 
by bores (there are some left yet besides those in 
Moliere's comedy), I had concerted all my measures 
to enjoy the pleasure of my predilection at my ease. 

A bright fire was blazing in my chimney, the cur- 
tains were drawn and admitted a dim mysterious light, 
some half-a-dozen Ottoman cushions were scattered 
about the carpet, here and there, and, comfortably 
reclining at exactly the right distance from the cheer- 
ing blaze, I was balancing upon my toes a roomy 
Moroccan baboosh of quaint shape and the yellow of 
the Orient ; my cat was cuddled upon my sleeve, like 
that of the prophet Mohammed, and I would not have 
changed my position for all the riches of the universe. 

My wandering glances, already rriore than half van- 
quished by that delicious drowsiness that succeeds the 
voluntary suspension of thought, were straying, rather 

63 



64 THE TIIO USA A D .LVD SECOND X7GHT. 



apathetically, from Camille Roqueplan's charming 
sketch of the Magdalen in the Desert to the severe pen- 
drawing of Aligny and the great landscape of the 
four inseparables, Feucheres, Sechan, Dieterle, and 
Desplechins, the joy and glory of my poor poet's 
domicile ; the sensation of real life was gradually 
slipping away from me, and I was sinking deeper and 
deeper beneath the unfathomable waves of that ocean 
of oblivion in which so many dreamers of the East have 
left their reason, already weakened by the use of 
opium and hasheesh. 

The most intense silence prevailed in the apart- 
ment ; I had stopped the clock so that I might not 
hear the ticking of the pendulum, that pulse-beat of 
eternity ; for when I am in one of my idle moods I 
cannot endure the feverish and idiotic restlessness of 
that yellow disk of brass that is constantly swinging 
from one corner of its cage to the other, and is always 
in motion without taking a step forward. 

All at once, kling-klang, there comes a ring at my 
bell, sharp, nervous, and reverberating with an insuf- 
ferably silvery tone, and falls upon my repose as a 
drop of molten lead might plunge, spluttering, into the 
bosom of a peaceful lake ; unmindful of my cat, 
curled up like a ball upon my sleeve, I started and 
jumped to my feet as if impelled by a spring, consign- 
ing to all the devils the imbecile of a porter who had 
allowed some one to enter in spite of my strict orders ; 
then I resumed my seat. Still under the influence of 
the shock that my nerves had sustained, I settled the 
cushions beneath my arms and bravely awaited the 
upshot of the affair. 

The door of the salon opened a little way, and the 



THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 65 



first object to present itself to my view was the woolly 
pate of Adolfo Francesco Pergialla, a sort of Abys- 
sinian land-shark in whose service I then was, while 
flattering myself with the delusion that I had a negro 
servant. The whites of his eyes rolled and glistened 
in his black face, his broad, flat nose was dilated to 
an enormous size, his thick lips, expanded in a smile 
as broad as a barn-door, disclosed a row of teeth as 
white as a Newfoundland dog's ; he was bursting in 
his black skin with the desire to speak, and making 
all sorts of grimaces to attract my attention. 

" Well, Francesco, what is it ? How much the 
wiser would I be if you should keep on rolling those 
crockery eyes of yours for an hour, like that bronze 
darky with a clock in his stomach ? A truce to 
pantomime, and try to tell me, in the best gibberish you 
are master of, what the matter is and who is the per- 
son who is come to start me from the covert of my 
idleness." 

It is incumbent on me to inform you that Adolfo 
Francesco Pergialla Abdallah-ben-Mohammed ; Abys- 
sinian by birth, formerly a Mohammedan, but now 
a Christian for the time being, knew every language 
and could not speak one intelligibly ; he would com- 
mence in French, continue in Italian and wind up 
with Turkish or Arabic, and this was more nota- 
bly the case when the conversation took an embarass- 
ing turn for him, as when some bottles of Bordeaux 
wine or of liqueurs of the isles, or other good things, 
had mysteriously disappeared before their allotted 
time. Luckily for me I have some polyglot friends : 
we would first drive him out of Europe ; after he had 
exhausted his stock of Spanish, Italian and German 



66 THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 



he would take refuge in Constantinople, in Turkish, 
whence Alfred would chase him out in short order ; 
finding himself in the toils he would skip over into 
Algeria, where he would have Eugene at his heels 
pursuing him through all the dialects of upper and 
lower Arabia ; when he had reached that point he 
would seek shelter in the Bambara, the Galla and 
other jargons of the interior of Africa, where it re- 
quired d'Abadie, Combes or Tamisier to force him 
out of his intrenchments. This time he answered me 
firmly in Spanish that w r as not very pure but was very 
distinct. 

" Wna mujer muy bonita con sii hermana quien 
quiere hablar a usted." (A very pretty woman and her 
sister, who wish to speak to you). 

" Introduce them if they are young and pretty ; 
otherwise tell them that I am busy." 

The rascal, who was something of a judge in such 
matters, disappeared for a short space and presently 
returned, followed by two women wrapped in great 
white burnooses with the capuchons pulled down 
over their eyes. 

I offered the ladies a couple of easy-chairs with the 
most gallant air that I had at my command, but notic- 
ing the piles of cushions, they made me a little sign 
with the hand to indicate that they thanked me and, 
throwing aside their burnooses, seated themselves 
cross-legged upon the floor, after the Oriental 
fashion. 

The one who was seated facing me, in the ray of 
sunlight that came into the room through the opening- 
bet ween the curtains, was apparently about twenty 
years old; the other one, who was not nearly so 



THE THOUSAND A ND SECOND NIGHT. 67 



pretty, seemed to be a little older ; we will confine our 
attention to the prettier one. 

She was richly attired in Turkish style ; her wasp- 
like waist was incased in a vest of green velvet 
heavily loaded with ornaments ; her chemisette of 
striped gauze, fastened at the neck by two diamond 
buttons, was parted in such a manner as to afford a 
glimpse of a white and well turned bosom ; a kerchief 
of white satin, studded with starry spangles, did duty 
as a belt. Wide, voluminous trousers came down to 
her knees ; her slender, shapely legs were protected 
by Albanian gaiters of embroidered velvet as far down 
as her little bare feet, that were imprisoned in tiny 
slippers of stamped and colored morocco, quilted 
and stitched with gold thread ; an orange caftan, 
embroidered with flowers of silver, and a scarlet fez, 
set off by a long silken tassel, completed this costume, 
certainly a rather fantastic one to go paying visits in 
at Paris in that year of evil omen, 1842. 

As to her face, it had that regularity of beauty that 
characterizes the Turkish race : her eyes, those beau- 
tiful Oriental eyes, so clear and so deep beneath their 
long lids stained with henna, seemed to open mys- 
teriously, like two black flowers, in the dull, creamy 
pallor of her complexion that was like unpolished 
marble. She looked about her with a troubled air 
and seemed embarrassed ; to set her mind at ease, no 
doubt, she held one of her feet in one of her hands 
and with the other hand toyed with the end of one of 
her tresses, which were all loaded with sequins pierced 
with a hole in the middle and with ribbons and strings 
of pearls. 

The second woman, attired in pretty much the 



68 THE THOU SAX D AXD SECOND NIGHT. 



same way, only not so richly, preserved the same 
silence and immobility. Mentally referring to the 
appearance in Paris of the bayaderes, I had an idea 
that they were dancing-girls from Cairo, some Egyp- 
tian acquaintances of my friend Dauzats, and that, 
encouraged by the favorable notice I had given in my 
paper to pretty Amany and her brown friends, Sandi- 
roun and Rangoun, they had come to seek my favor 
in my quality as a feuilletoniste. 

"What can I do for you, ladies?" I said, raising 
my hands to my ears in such a way as to produce a 
salamalec that should be adequate to the occasion. 

The fair Turk raised her eyes to the ceiling, cast 
them down to the floor, finally looked at her sister with 
an air of profound meditation. She did not under- 
stand a word of French. 

" Halloa, Francesco ! scoundrel, blockhead, raga- 
muffin ; come here, you misshapen monkey, and make 
yourself useful for once in your life, at least." 

Francesco approached with an important and 
majestic air. 

" As, you speak French sc badly, you must speak 
Arabic very well, and you are going to play the part 
of dragoman between these ladies and me. I promote 
you to the position of interpreter ;• in the first place 
ask these fair strangers who they are, whence they 
come, and what they want." 

I will relate the conversation that ensued as if it had 
been carried on in French, without attempting to re- 
produce the various contortions and flowers of rhetoric 
of the aforesaid Francesco, 

" Sir," said the pretty Turk, through the organ of 
the negro, il although you are a man of letters, you 



THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 69 



must have read the Thousand and One Nights, a 
collection of Arab tales, translated, more or less 
faithfully, by good M. Galland, and the name of 
Scheherazade should be familiar to you ?" 

" Beautiful Scheherazade, wife of Schahriar, that 
sultan fruitful in resources who, that he might not be 
deceived, married a wife overnight and sent her to be 
bowstrung in the morning? I know her. very well." 

" Well ! I am the Sultana Scheherazade, and this 
is my good sister Dmarzarde, who has never a 
single night missed saying to me : ' Sister, if you are 
not sleeping, tell us, I pray you, before it is day, one 
of those nice stories that you know.' " 

" Delighted to see you, I am sure, although your 
visit appears a little singular ; but tell me, what is it 
that procures me the distinguished honor of receiving 
in my abode, poor poet that I am, the Sultana Schehe- 
razade and her sister Dinarzarde ? " 

" I have told so many stories that I have reached 
the end of my repertory ; I don't know another single 
one. I have exhausted the personages of fairy-land ; 
the ghouls, the djiilns and the magicians, male and 
female, have been of great service to me, but nothing 
lasts forever, not even the impossible. The most glori- 
ous sultan, shadow of thepadishah, light of lights, sun 
and moon of the middle empire, is beginning to yawn 
portentously and trifle ominously with the handle of 
his ataghan ; I told my last story this morning, and my 
sublime lord has condescended to leave my head upon 
my shoulders yet for a while. I have made my way 
hither in all haste, with the assistance of the magic 
carpet of the four Facardins, to hunt up a tale, a story, 
a romance ; for to-morrow morning, at the accustomed 



7° THE THOU SAX D AXD SECOXD XIGHT. 



summons of my sister Dinarzarde, I must have some- 
thing in readiness to relate to the illustrious Schahriar, 
arbiter of my destiny ; Galland, the idiot, has deceived 
the universe by asserting that the sultan, surfeited 
with stories, had granted me a pardon after the thou- 
sand and first night ; there is not a word of truth in 
it ; he is more ravenous for stories than ever, and his 
curiosity alone can countervail his cruelty." 

''Your sultan Schahriar, my poor Scheherazade, is 
dreadfully like our public ; if we fail for a single day 
to afford it its usual amusement, it does not cut off 
our head, it is true, but it forgets us, and that is pretty 
nearly as bad. Your sad fate grieves me, but what 
can I do?" 

" You must have some novel, some feuilleton, in 
your portfolio ; let me have it." 

" Do you know what you are asking, charming 
Sultana? I have nothing finished; I never work 
except when compelled by the last extremity of famine, 
for, as Persius has well said : Fames facit poctridas 
picas. I have still enough to keep myself from starving 
for three days ; go and find Karr, if you can get to 
him through the swarms of wasps * that are all the 
time buzzing and fluttering around his door and 
against his windows ; he has his head stuffed full with 
the most delightful love-stories that he will relate to 
you in the interval between a boxing lesson and a 
tune on his French horn ; or wait and catch Jules 
Janin as he turns the corner of some feuilleton, and 
he will walk along at your side and improvise such a 
story as the sultan Schahriar never heard in all his 
life." 

* An aliusion to Alphonse Karr's work, Les Guepes. 



THE THOU SAX D AXD SECOXD XIGHT. 



71 



Poor Scheherazade hereupon raised her long henna- 
stained eyes upward toward the ceiling with a look so 
soft, lustrous, melting, and suppliant that my heart 
was softened and I made up my mind to do a great 
thing. 

" I did have a subject, such as it is, that I was 
intending to spin into a feuilleton ; I will dictate it to 
you and you can translate it into Arabic, adding the 
embroideries, the flowers and pearls of poesy, in which 
it is deficient ; there is a title ready made for it : we 
will christen our story the Thousand and Second 
Night r 

Scheherazade took a block of paper and began to 
write from right to left, in the Oriental way, with 
great swiftness. There was no time to lose : she had 
to be in the capital of the kingdom of Samarcand 
that same evening. 

There once lived in the city of Cairo a young man 
named Mahmoud-Ben- Ahmed, who had his residence 
on the place of the Esbekick. 

His father and mother had died some years before, 
leaving him a moderate fortune, but one which sufficed 
to yield him a living without having recourse to the 
toil of his hands ; others would have essayed the 
venture of loading a ship with merchandise, or send- 
ing a few camels laden with precious stuffs to accom- 
pany the caravan which traffics between Bagdad and 
Mecca, but Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed chose rather to 
live tranquilly, and his pleasures consisted in smoking 
tombeki in his nargile, in drinking sherbets and 
eating the dried confections of Damascus. 

Although he was of attractive presence, with regular 



72 THE THOUSAXD AXD SECOXD XI GUT. 



features and a pleasing expression, he held himself 
aloof from affairs of love, and to those who did urge 
him to marry and proffer him wealthy and suitable 
alliances, he had several times made answer that the 
time was not yet come and that he felt no inclination 
to take unto himself a wife. 

Mahmoud-Ben- Ahmed had received a good educa- 
tion ; he could read with ease the most ancient works, 
wrote an elegant hand, knew by heart the verses of 
the Koran and the remarks of the commentators, and 
could have rattled you off the Moallakats of the 
famous poets that were nailed against the doors of the 
mosques without missing a verse ; he was himself 
something of a poet, and took delight in composing 
sonorous rhymed couplets that he would declaim to 
airs fashioned by himself, with much grace and 
elegance. 

Now, through much smoking of his nargile and 
dreaming in the coolness of eventide upon the marble 
pavement of his terrace, Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed had 
come to have exalted ideas in his head ; he had de- 
termined that he would bestow his love only upon a 
peri, or, at the very least, upon a princess of royal 
birth. Therein lay the secret motive that made him 
look with such indifference upon the offers of mar- 
riage that were made him and refuse the proposals of 
the slave-merchants. The only companion who found 
favor in his eyes was his cousin Abdul-Malek, a gentle 
and timid youth, whose tastes seemed to be of a 
modesty equal to his own. 

Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed, one day, was wending his 
way to the bazaar to purchase some flasks of attar-gul 
and other conserves of Constantinople that he stood 



THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 



7S 



in need of. In a very narrow street he met a litter 
inclosed by curtains of rose-red velvet, borne by 
two milk-white mules and preceded by mutes and 
chaoushes in sumptuous raiment. He drew back 
against the wall to make way for the cortege, but not 
so quickly as to avoid catching a glimpse, through the 
parting of the curtains, which were just then raised by 
a truant breath of air; of an exceedingly handsome 
woman, reclining on cushions of gold brocade. The 
lady had trusted in the thickness of her curtains and 
raised her veil on account of the heat, believing that 
she was beyond the reach of any audacious eye. It 
lasted but the space of a lightning-flash, but it was 
sufficient to turn poor Mahmoud-Ben- Ahmed's head ; 
the lady's complexion was of dazzling whiteness, her 
eyebrows one might have deemed traced by the pencil 
of a painter, her mouth was like a pomegranate, and 
the lips, when parted, disclosed a double row of 
pearls, of purer water and more lustrous than ttrose 
that form the bracelets and the necklace of the favorite 
sultana ; she possessed an agreeable and lofty mien, 
and from all her person there seemed to exhale an in- 
expressible air of nobleness and majesty. 

Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed remained a long time motion- 
less where he stood, as if dazed by such perfection, 
and forgetting that he had come forth to make some 
purchases, returned to his dwelling empty-handed, 
bearing the radiant vision imprinted on his heart. 

All night long he dreamed only of the fair unknown, 
and was no sooner risen than he applied himself to 
composing a long poem in her honor, on which he 
lavished all his most flowery and impassioned com- 
parisons. 



74 THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 



AVhen his piece was finished and a fair copy made 
upon a noble sheet of milk-white papyrus, with great 
initial letters in red ink and flourishes of gold, he 
knew not what to do, so put it in his sleeve and went 
forth to show his production to his friend Abdul, from 
whom he had no secrets. 

On his way to Abdul's abode he passed the bazaar 
and entered the shop of the perfumer to obtain the 
flasks of attar of rose ; there he found a beautiful 
lady, wrapped in a' long white veil that concealed all 
her person excepting her left eye. That left eye in- 
continently betrayed to Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed the 
lady of the palanquin. His emotion was so great 
that he was compelled to support himself against the 
wall. 

The lady of the white veil remarked Mahmoud-Ben- 
Ahmed's trouble, and courteously inquired what ailed 
him and if, peradventure, he were unwell. There- 
upon the merchant, the lady and Mahmoud-Ben- 
Ahmed withdrew to the back-shop. A little negro 
brought a glass of snow-water upon a salver, of 
which Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed quaffed a few swallows. 

" Why, pray tell me, hath the sight of me produced 
such an impression upon you ?" the lady said in a 
sweet voice that betrayed a passably tender interest. 

Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed told how he had beheld her 
near the mosque of Hassan the Sultan just as the 
curtains of her litter had been parted a little, and that 
since that moment he had been dying with love for 
her. 

" Of a verity," said the lady, " and your passion was 
of such sudden birth as that? I had thought that love 
grew not so quickly. I am indeed the woman whom 



THE THOUSAND AXD SECOND NIGH T. 7$ 



you met yesterday ; I was hieing me to the bath in 
my litter, and as the heat was stifling, I had put up 
my veil. But you did see' amiss, and I am not as 
beautiful as you say." 

As she said these words she put aside her veil and 
disclosed a face radiant with beauty, and so perfect 
that Envy herself could not have discovered in it the 
least defect. 

The reader may imagine what were Mahmoud-Ben- 
Ahmed's transports upon receiving such a mark of 
favor ; he overwhelmed the fair one with compliments, 
and, which is a rare thing with compliments, they all had 
the merit of being truthful and devoid of exaggera- 
tion. As he proceeded, infusing great fire and anima- 
tion into his words, the scroll upon which his verses 
were transcribed escaped from his sleeve and rolled 
upon the floor. 

" What is that scroll? " said the lady. " The writing 
appears to me of passing elegance, and tells of a 
skilled hand." 

"It is a copy of verses," the young man made an- 
swer, blushing deeply, "that I did compose last night, 
being unable to slumber. I have essayed in them to 
do honor to your transcendent charms, but the copy 
is far inferior to the original, and my verse has not the 
brilliancy that it should have worthily to describe the 
brilliancy of your eyes." 

The young lady read the verses attentively, and 
placing them in her belt, said : 

" Though they contain many flatteries, they are 
truly not ill turned." 

Thereupon she arranged her veil and left the 
shop negligently letting fall these words, with an ac- 



7<5 THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT, 



cent that went straight to Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed's 
heart : 

" I sometimes visit Bedreddin's shop on my way 
home from the bath, to purchase essences and boxes 
of perfume. " 

The merchant, conducting Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed 
to the most remote recess of his shop, congratulated 
him upon his good fortune and whispered mysteri- 
ously in his ear: 

" That young lady is no other than the princess 
Ayesha, daughter of the Caliph." 

Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed returned to his abode utterly 
bewildered by his happiness and scarce daring to 
believe that it could be true. And yet, modest as he 
was, he could not be blind to the fact that the princess 
Ayesha had looked on him with an eye of favor. 
That great busybody, Chance, had exceeded his most 
audacious dreams. How he congratulated himself 
now that he had not yielded to the advice of those 
friends of his who had urged him to marry, and that 
he had not been seduced by the alluring descrip- 
tions that old women gave him of marriageable young 
girls, who, as is well known by every one, invariably 
have the eyes of the gazelle, a face like the full moon, 
hair longer than the tail of Al Borack, the prophet's 
favorite mare, a mouth as red as jasper, with a breath 
sweet as ambergris, and a thousand perfections be- 
side which disappear at the same time as the haick and 
the nuptial veil : how he rejoiced that he was untram- 
meled by any vulgar tie, and free to abandon himself 
entirely to his new passion ! 

It was all to no purpose that he turned and twisted 
on his divan, he could not sleep ; the image of the 



THE THOUSAND AiVD SECOND NIGHT. 77 



princess Ayesha kept passing and repassing before 
his eyes, flashing like a bird of flame upon a back- 
ground of sunset sky. Unable to secure repose, he 
ascended to one of his cabinets of cedar, marvelously 
carved, that in eastern cities are built out from the 
exterior walls of the houses, in order to profit by the 
coolness of the breeze that never failed to draw 
through the street ; still sleep visited him not — for 
sleep is like happiness, it flies from us when we seek it — 
and to soothe his mind by the spectacle of the serenity 
of the night, he took his nargile and went out upon 
the highest terrace of his mansion. 

The cool air of night, the splendor of the heavens, 
more thickly set with golden spangles than a peri's robe, 
and in which the moon was displaying her silvery face 
like a sultana, pale with love, bending over the trellis 
of her kiosk, brought joy and content to Mahmoud- 
Ben-Ahmed, for he was a poet and could not but be af- 
fected by the glorious spectacle that offered itself to 
his vision. 

From that height the city of Cairo lay stretched 
before his eyes like one of those birds-eye plans in 
which the giaours trace the outlines of their fortified 
places. The terraces adorned with luxuriant plants 
in pots and gay with multi-colored tapestries ; the 
spots where the waters of the Nile shone in the moon- 
light, for it was then the time of the yearly inundation; 
the gardens, from whence rose clusters of palms and 
groves of locust and fig-trees ; the blocks of houses 
intersected by narrow streets ; the brazen domes of the 
mosques ; the slender minarets, pierced with carvings 
until they were like a toy of ivory ; the palaces, bril- 
liantly lighted or else lying in deepest obscurity, all 



1% THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 



formed a coup oTceil than which there could have been 
found nothing more magnificent to delight the eye. 
In the far distance the ashy hues of the desert sands 
blended away into the milky tints of the firmament, 
and the three pyramids of Ghizeh described their huge 
triangular masses of stone, vaporous and unsubstan- 
tial as shadows in the blue moonlight, against the line 
of the horizon. 

Reclining on a pile of cushions with the long, flex- 
ible tube of his nargile enwrapping his form in its 
coils, Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed endeavored to make out 
through the transparent darkness the shape of the 
distant palace where slumbered the fair Ayesha. A 
deep silence reigned over this picture that one might 
have taken for the work of the painter's brush, for not 
a breath, not a sound was there to reveal the presence 
of a living being: the only noise perceptible was that 
made by the smoke of Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed's nar^ 
gile as it passed through the ball of rock-crystal that 
contained water designed to cool its white wreaths. 
All at once this tranquillity was broken by a piercing 
cry, a cry of supreme distress, such as the antelope at 
the border of the spring must utter when it feels the 
lion's paw upon its shoulder, or its head buried deep in 
the wide-extended jaws of the crocodile. Mahmoud- 
Ben-Ahmed, terror-stricken at this cry of agony and 
despair, sprang to his feet at a single bound and in- 
stinctively placed his hand upon the pommel of his 
yataghan and partially drew it so as to assure himself 
that it was free in the scabbard, then bent his ear in 
the direction whence the sound had seemed to him to 
proceed. 

Far away in the darkness he descried a strange, 



THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 79 



shadowy group, composed of a white- robed figure 
pursued by a horde of black, fantastic, monstrous 
forms in disorderly array and with maniacal gestures. 
The white shadow seemed to fly over the house-tops, 
and the distance between it and its enemies was so 
small that there was reason to fear that it would soon 
be overtaken should the chase be protracted or should 
nothing happen to favor it. Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed at 
first believed that it was a peri beset by a pack of 
ghouls, who munch the flesh of the dead with their 
huge tusks, or of djinns, with flabby, membranous 
wings and long nails like those of bats, and, drawing 
from his pocket his comboloio of beads of ruddy aloe- 
wood, he began to recite the ninety-nine names of 
Allah by way of exorcism. He had not yet reached 
the twentieth when he desisted. It was not a peri, a 
supernatural being, who was flying thus, leaping from 
terrace to terrace and bounding across the streets, 
four or five feet in width — which, in eastern cities, 
bisect the close-built blocks of houses — but a woman of 
flesh and blood, and the djinns were only mutes, 
chaouses, and eunuchs, who were after her in hot 
pursuit. 

Only two or three terraces and a street now lay 
between the fugitive and the platform where Mah- 
moud-Ben-Ahmed was standing, but her strength 
seemed to be abandoning her ; she turned her head 
convulsively for a look backward, and, as a spent 
horse that feels the spur tearing his flank, beholding 
the hideous band so close upon her trail, she made a 
supreme effort, and with a desperate leap placed the 
street between her and her foes. 

She grazed Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed in her headlong 



So THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT 



flight without perceiving him, for the moon was now 
obscured by clouds, and flew to the extremity of the 
terrace, which fronted on that side upon a second 
street, wider than the first. Distrusting her ability to 
leap it, she seemed to be casting her eyes about for 
some nook in which to conceal herself, and noticing a 
great marble vase, she hid within it, like the genie who 
re-enters the cup of a lily. 

The raging troop came upon the terrace with the 
impetuosity of a flight of demons. Their black or 
copper-colored faces, either with long mustaches or 
else hideously beardless, their flashing eyes, their 
clenched hands, brandishing kandjars or blades of 
Damascus, the ferocity expressed upon their degraded 
and cruel countenances, inspired Mahmoud-Ben- 
Ahmed with a feeling of terror, although he was per- 
sonally a brave man and well skilled in the use of 
arms. They gave a rapid glance over the unoccupied 
terrace and, not beholding the fugitive there, doubt- 
less thought she had passed the second street, and con- 
tinued onward in their pursuit without paying fur- 
ther attention to Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed. 

When the clash of their weapons and the noise of 
their babooshes upon the flagstones of the terraces 
had died away in the distance, the fugitive first raised 
her pretty, pale face above the edge of the vase and 
looked about her with the air of a frightened ante- 
lope, then her shoulders emerged and she stood erect, 
a charming pistil rising from the depths of that great 
flower of marble ; perceiving that there was no one 
there but Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed, who was smiling 
upon her and making signs that she had no cause for 
fear, she leaped lightly from the vase and came to- 



THE THOUSAND AXD SECOXD NIGHT 81 



ward the young man with an aspect of humility and 
hands extended in supplication. 

" I beseech you, my lord, for sweet pity's sake, have 
mercy on me and save me; hide me in the darkest cor- 
ner of your mansion, protect me from those demons 
who are pursuing me." 

Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed took her by the hand, led 
her to the staircase of the terrace, of which he lowered 
and carefully closed the trap-door, and conducted her 
to his apartment. When he had lighted his lamp he 
saw that the fugitive was young, which the silvery 
tone of her voice had already given him reason to 
suspect was the case, and very pretty, which did not 
astonish him, for the light of the stars had sufficed to 
reveal the elegance of her form. She seemed not to 
be more than fifteen years old. Her excessive pallor 
contrasted strongly with her big, black, almond-shaped 
eyes, the corners of which were prolonged so that 
they reached the temples ; her thin and delicately 
moulded nose gave distinction to a profile that might 
have inspired envy in the most beautiful maidens of 
Scio or of Cyprus, a-nd eclipsed the marble beauty of 
the idols that were once worshiped by the old pagan 
Greeks. Her neck was perfect in form and charming 
in its whiteness ; only there was visible at the back a 
thin streak of scarlet, thin as a hair or the finest thread 
of silk, and a few tiny drops of blood were oozing 
from this red line. Her attire was plain, and con- 
sisted of a silk-embroidered jacket, muslin trousers 
and a belt with gayly colored stripes ; her bosom was 
heaving tumultuously beneath her tunic of striped 
gauze, for she*was still breathless and scarcely re* 
covered from her alarm. 



S3 THE THOUSAND AND SECOND XIGHT. 



When she was rested and reassured somewhat, she 
kneeled before Mahmoud-Ben- Ahmed and told him 
her story in well-chosen language. " I was a slave," 
said she, " in the seraglio of the wealthy Abu-Becker, 
and I was guilty of conveying to his favorite sultana 
a selam, or floral letter, that had been sent her by an 
extremely handsome young emir with whom she was 
carrying on a correspondence. Abu -Becker, having 
surprised the secret and thereon fallen into a terrible 
rage, caused the sultana to be sewn up in a leather 
bag along with two cats and thrown into the river and 
sentenced me to have my head cut off. The execu- 
tion of the sentence devolved upon the kislar-aga; 
but, taking advantage of the fright and consternation 
that poor Nourmahal's terrible punishment had caused 
in the seraglio, and finding the trap-door leading to 
the terrace open, I made my escape. My flight was 
discovered, and forthwith the black eunuchs, the 
zebecs and the Albanians in my master's service 
started in pursuit of me. One of them, Mesrour by 
name, whose advances I have many a time repelled, 
was so close at my heels that he barely missed catch- 
ing me ; I once even felt the edge of the blade that 
he was brandishing graze my neck, and it was then 
that I gave utterance to that dreadful cry that you 
must have heard, for I confess that I thought my last 
hour had come ; but God is God and Mohammed is 
his prophet, and the angel Azrael was not yet ready 
to carry me away to the bridge Alsirat. My only 
hope now rests in you. Abu-Becker is powerful, he 
will send out men upon my track and, should he suc- 
ceed in taking me, Mesrour's hand*will be steadier 
next time and his kandjar will not be satisfied with 



THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 83 



grazing my neck," said she, smiling and passing her 
hand over the faint red mark that the eunuch's blade 
had left behind it. " Take me for your slave ; I will 
devote to you the life for which I am indebted to you. 
You will always have a shoulder on which to rest 
your elbow, and my hair will serve to wipe the dust 
from your sandals." 

As is the case with all men who devote their atten- 
tion to poetry and literature, Mahmoud-Ben- Ahmed 
was of a very compassionate disposition. Leila, as 
the fugitive slave was called, used choice language 
to express her thoughts and was young and beautiful, 
and had this not been so, humanity would not have 
allowed him to drive her from his door. He desig- 
nated to the young slave a corner of the room where 
there were a Persian carpet and some silken cushions, 
and upon the edge of the estrade a little collation of 
dates, candied cedrats and conserve of roses of Con- 
stantinople which he, distraught as he was and busied 
with his reflections, had not touched, and further, two 
jars of the porous clay of Thebes for imparting cool- 
ness to the water, standing in saucers of Japanese 
porcelain and covered with pearly beads of dew. 
Having thus provided temporarily for Leila's comfort, 
he mounted again to his terrace to finish his nargile 
and find the concluding rhymes for the ghazel that he 
was composing in honor of the princess Ayesha, a 
ghazel in which the lilies of Iran, the flowers of Gu- 
Ustan, the stars and all the constellations of the 
heavens were quarreling among themselves to be 
allowed the honor of a place. 

The next morning, as soon as it was day, Mali- 
moud-Ben-Ahmed reflected that he had no sachet 



84 THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT, 



of benzoin, that he was quite out of civet, and that the 
silken pouch, embroidered with gold and studded 
with spangles, in which he kept his latakia, was frayed 
and that it was high time to replace it by another, 
richer and in better taste. Barely giving himself 
time to perform his ablutions and say his morning 
prayer, turning his face the while toward the rising 
sun, he went forth from his abode, first having re- 
copied his verses and placed them in his sleeve,- as 
he had done the other time, not, however, with the 
intention of showing them to his friend Abdul, but of 
giving them to the princess Ayesha in person should 
he be so happy as to meet with her at the bazaar, in 
the shop of the merchant Bedreddin. The muezzin, 
perched aloft upon the balcony of the minaret, had 
only called the fifth hour, and the streets were unten- 
anted save for the fellahs driving before them their 
asses loaded with watermelons, frails of dates, chick- 
ens tied together by their claws and quarters of mut- 
ton, which they were carrying to the market. He 
was in the quarter where Ayesha's palace was situ- 
ated, but all that he could see was crenelated and 
whitewashed walls. Nothing was to be seen at the 
three or four small windows, obstructed by wooden lat- 
tices with narrow openings, which allowed the people 
of the house to see what was going on in the street, 
but were provokingly disappointing to the inquisitive 
glances of the Paul Prys who were outside. The 
palaces of the East, unlike the palaces of Frankestan, 
save their glories for the interior, and, so to speak, 
turn their back to the wayfarer. So Mahmoud-Ben- 
Ahmed did not profit greatly by his investigations. 
He saw three or four richly appareled negro slaves 



THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 85 



going out or coming in, whose insolent and haughty 
bearing attested their consciousness of making part 
of a prominent family and belonging to a person of 
the highest quality. Our love-struck swain made 
fruitless efforts, by gazing at those thick walls, to dis- 
cover in what quarter Ayesha's apartments lay. He 
gazed in vain : the main entrance, an arch describing 
the shape of a heart, was protected by an inner wail ; 
access to the court was by means of a lateral door 
which suffered no impertinent glance to enter.' Mah- 
moud-Ben-Ahmed was obliged to retire without hav- 
ing made any discovery ; it was getting late and he 
might have attracted attention. He therefore bent 
his steps toward Bedreddin's shop, to gain whose favor 
he made considerable purchases of things of which 
he was not in the slightest need. He seated himself 
in the shop, cross-questioned the merchant, examined 
him upon his trade, inquired if the silks and carpets 
brought in by the last caravan from Aleppo had met 
with a good sale, if his ships had got into port with- 
out damage ; in a word, he had recourse to all the 
contemptible tricks that lovers habitually make use 
of ; he was in hopes to see Ayesha come into the 
shop, but he was disappointed in his anticipation ; 
she did not come that day. He went away home with 
a heavy heart, already branding her as cruel and per- 
fidious, as if she had actually promised him that she 
would be at Bedreddin's and had broken her word. 

When he returned to his room he deposited his 
babooshes in the niche of sculptured marble that was 
hollowed in the wall beside the door for that purpose, 
laid aside the caftan of costly stuff that he had donned 
with the idea of making himself attractive and appear- 



86 THE THOU SAX D AXD SECOXD NIGH T. 



ing to the best advantage before Ayesha, and stretched 
himself upon his divan in a state of dejection that 
bordered on despair. It seemed to him that all was 
lost, that the world was about to come to an end, and 
he solaced himself by railing bitterly against fate ; and 
ail because he had failed to meet, as he had hoped to 
do, a woman whom, two days before, he was entirely 
unacquainted with. 

As he lay there with the eyes of his body closed 
that he might the better behold the dream of his soul, 
he was conscious of a gentle breeze blowing refresh- 
ingly upon his brow ; he raised his eyelids and beheld 
Leila, seated on the floor at his side, waving one of 
those little streamers made of the bark of the palm 
tree which in Eastern countries serve as a fan and a 
fly-flap. He had quite forgotten her existence. 

" What is the matter with you, dear master ? " she 
said, in a voice that was as soft and melodious as 
sweetest music. " Some care is troubling you ; your 
peace of mind seems to have deserted you. Were it 
in the power of your poor slave to disperse that cloud 
of melancholy that rests upon your brow, she would 
deem herself the happiest woman upon earth, and not 
even upon Ayesha, rich and beautiful though she be, 
would she look with the eye of envy." 

The mention of that name caused Mahmoud-Ben- 
Ahmed to start upon his divan, like a sick man upon 
whose sore a hand is unintentionally laid ; he raised 
himself partially upon his elbow and cast an inquiring 
look upon Leila, who maintained a perfectly unruffled 
countenance, expressive only of a tender solicitude. 
For all that he blushed as if she had read his heart 
and surprised the secret of his passion. Leila, with- 



THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 



*7 



out remarking upon this tell-tale and significant 
signal, continued to soothe her new master with con- 
soling words : 

" What can I do to drive from your mind the dark 
thoughts by which it is haunted ? Peradventure a little 
music might serve to dissipate that melancholy. I 
was taught the secrets of composition by an old slave 
who was an odalisque of the former sultan ; I can 
improvise poetry and accompany myself upon the 
guzla." 

So saying she took from the wall the guzla with its 
sounding-board of lemon-wood, its ivory keys and 
handle inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ebony, and 
with rare address performed upon it the tarabuca and 
some other Arab airs. 

The purity of her voice and the sweetness of the 
music would have gladdened Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed 
at any other time, for he was extremely susceptible 
to the charm of poetry and harmony, but now his 
brain and heart were so full of the woman whom he had 
seen at Bedreddin's that he gave no attention to Leila's 
songs. 

The next day was kinder to him than the preceding 
one had been, for he met Ayesha at Bedreddin's shop. 
To attempt to describe his joy would be a hopeless 
undertaking ; only those who have loved are capable 
of understanding it. He remained for a moment 
speechless, breathless, seeing things dimly, as through 
a cloud. Ayesha, who perceived his emotion, was 
gratified by it and addressed him very affably, for 
there is nothing that so flatters the pride of those 
of noble birth as the disturbance that they cause. 
Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed, once he was master of himself 



88 THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 



again, strained every nerve to make himself agreeable, 
and as he was young and good looking, had studied 
poetry and expressed himself in the most elegant 
language, he thought he could see that he was not 
displeasing to her eyes and made bold to ask the 
princess for a rendezvous in a more suitable and more 
retired place than was afforded by Bedreddin's shop. 

" I know," he said, " that at best I am but fit to be 
the dust beneath your feet, that the swiftest horse in 
the stable of the prophet, even should he gallop at 
his highest speed, could not traverse the distance that 
parts me from you in a thousand years ; but love 
begets audacity, and the worm enamored of the rose 
may not refrain from telling his passion." 

Ayesha listened to it all without the slightest indica- 
tion of anger, and fixing full upon Mahmoud-Ben- 
Ahmed her languorous eyes, said to him : 

" Be in the mosque of the sultan Hassan, beneath 
the third lamp, to-morrow at the hour of prayer ; you 
will encounter there a black slave attired in yellow 
damask. Follow him whither he may lead you." 
That said, she covered her face with her veil and left 
the shop. 

Our swain, as may well be supposed, did not fail to 
be punctual at the rendezvous ; he stationed himself 
beneath the third lamp and did not dare to stir from 
it for fear of not being found by the black slave, who 
was not yet at his post. It is true that Mahmoud-Ben- 
Ahmed was there two hours ahead of the appointed 
time. At last he saw the negro in yellow damask ap- 
proaching \ he came straight to the pillar against 
which Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed was leaning. When the 
slave had observed him closely he made a sign to indi- 



THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. H 



cate that the young man was to follow him, and they 
left the mosque together. The black walked rapidly* 
and led Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed, with many a twist and 
turn, through the tortuous tangle of the streets of 
Cairo. Once our young man would have entered into 
conversation with his guide, but the latter, opening 
wide his mouth that bristled with sharp, white teeth, 
showed that his tongue had been cut away at the 
roots. This circumstance would have rendered it 
difficult for him to commit an indiscretion. 

At last they reached a portion of the city that 
seemed entirely deserted and to which Mahmoud- 
Ben-Ahmed was a stranger, although he was born in 
Cairo and thought that he knew every quarter of it : 
the mute stopped before a whitewashed wall in which 
there was no indication of a door. He measured off 
six paces from the corner of the wall and then looked 
very carefully among the interstices of the stones, 
doubtless for a spring that was concealed there. 
Having discovered it he pressed the lever and a 
column revolved upon its axis, disclosing a dark and 
narrow passage which the mute entered, followed by 
Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed. First they descended a flight 
of steps, over a hundred in number, after which they 
pursued their way along a dark corridor that seemed 
to be of interminable length. Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed, 
as he groped his way along the walls, covered with 
sculptured hieroglyphics, knew that they had been 
cut through the living rock, and perceived that he was 
among the subterranean passages of an ancient Egyp- 
tian necropolis which some one had utilized by trans- 
forming them into this concealed exit. There was a 
glimpse of bluish daylight visible in the remote dis- 



9° THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 



tance, at the end of the corridor. This light came to 
them through the lace-work of a carving that evi- 
dently made part of the room in which the corridor 
terminated. The slave again touched a spring, and 
Mahmoud-Ben- Ahmed found himself in a great hall 
paved with white marble, with a basin and fountain in 
the middle, columns of alabaster, walls covered with 
mosaics of glass and sentences from the Koran, in- 
terspersed with flowers and other decorations, while 
over all was a vault, intricately and laboriously 
carved, like the interior of a beehive or of a grotto 
roofed with stalactites ; the decoration was completed 
by huge scarlet poppies growing in great Moorish 
vases of blue and white porcelain. Seated upon an 
estrade piled with cushions, in a sort of alcove that 
had been excavated in the thickness of the wall, was 
the princess Ayesha, unveiled, radiant with beauty and 
surpassing in loveliness the houris of the fourth heaven. 

"Well! Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed," she said, ad- 
dressing him in a most gracious tone and signing to 
him to be seated, " have you been making more verses 
in my honor ? " 

Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed cast himself at Ayesha's feet 
and, drawing the papyrus from his sleeve, recited his 
ghazel in most impassioned tones ; in truth it was a 
remarkable piece of poetry. As he read the princess's 
cheeks brightened and flamed like a lamp of alabaster 
that has been newly lighted. Her eyes shone like 
stars and emitted rays of surprising brightness, her 
form seemed to become transparent, and there was a 
faint apparition as of butterfly-wings growing from 
her pretty, vibrating shoulders. Unfortunately Mah- 
moud-Ben-Ahmed, too deeply engrossed in reading 



THE TITO U SAX D AXD SECOND NIGHT. 9t 



his piece of poetry, did not raise his eyes and so saw 
nothing of the transformation that had been going on. 
When he reached the end he had only before him the 
Princess Ayesha, who looked at him with an ironical 
smile upon her lips. 

Like all poets, who are too much wrapped up in their 
own creations, Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed had forgotten 
that the finest lines are of no worth as compared with 
a sincere word or a look that is illumined by the light 
of love. Peris are like women, it behooves one to 
read them and grasp them just at the very moment 
when they are about to wing their way back to 
heaven, to descend to earth no more. Opportunity 
is to be seized by the forelock, and the spirits of air # 
by their wings ; it is by such methods alone that they 
are to be subjugated. 

" Of a truth, Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed, you possess a 
poetic talent of the rarest, and your verses are worthy 
of being displayed upon the doors of the mosques, 
written in letters of gold, beside the most celebrated 
productions of Ferdusi, Saadi and Ibnn-Ben-Omaz. 
It is a pity that you were so absorbed but now in the 
perfection of your alliterative rhymes that you did 
not look at me ; you might have seen — something that 
perhaps you will never see again. The dearest wish 
of your heart was fulfilled right before your eyes with- 
out your being aware of it. Adieu, Mahmoud-Ben- 
Ahmed, who would marry none but a peri." 

Thereupon Ayesha arose with an extremely majestic 
air, raised a portiere of gold brocade and disappeared. 

The mute came to seek Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed and 
conducted him by the same road back to the same 
place whence he had taken him. Mahmoud-Ben- 



9 2 THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 



Ahmed, shocked and grieved at having been dismissed 
in such summary fashion, knew not what to think, and 
losthimse]f in conjectures without being able to dis- 
cover any reason for the princess's abrupt leave-taking : 
his reflections resulted in attributing it to the caprice 
of a woman who would be ready to veer around again 
at the first opportunity, but it was to no purpose that 
he visited Bedreddin to purchase benzoin and skins of 
the civet cat, he saw nothing more of the Princess 
Ayesha ; he made countless pilgrimages to the mosque 
of the sultan Hassan and wasted much time standing 
by the third pillar ; the black slave in yellow damask 
did not appear, and the result of it all was that he sank 
into a deep, black fit of melancholy. 

Leila taxed her ingenuity in inventing a thousand 
things for his diversion : she played for him on the 
guzla ; she told him most wonderful tales, adorned 
his chamber with festoons and garlands of flowers of 
which the colors were so agreeably mated and diversi- 
fied that the sense of sight was as much gratified as 
was that of smell ; sometimes she even danced before 
him, displaying as much agility and grace as the most 
skilful almee ; any other than Mahmoud. Ben-Ahmed 
would have been touched by such attention and good 
will, but his thoughts were elsewhere and the longing 
to find Ayesha again left him no repose. Many a 
time he had gone and wandered about the princess's 
palace, but had never succeeded in catching a glimpse 
of her ; nothing was visible behind the tightly closed 
lattices ; the palace was like a tomb. 

His friend Abdul-Malek, alarmed by his condition, 
frequently came to see him, and on such occasions 
could not help observing Leila's beauty and accom- 



THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT, 



93 



plishments, which, to say the least, equaled those of 
the princess Ayesha, even if they did not surpass them, 
and he was astonished to see how blind Mahmoud- 
Ben- Ahmed was; had it not been that he feared to 
violate the sacred laws of friendship he would gladly 
have made the young slave his wife. Still, however, 
Leila, without suffering any loss of beauty, grew paler 
and paler day by day ; her great eyes were suffused 
with languor, and the roseate hues of dawn upon her 
cheeks were displaced by the pallor of the moonlight. 
One day Mahmoud- Ben- Ahmed perceived that she 
had been weeping and asked of her the reason. 

" Oh ! dear master," she said, u how can I tell it? 
I, the poor slave, received and sheltered by your 
compassion, have Glared to love you ; but what am I 
in your eyes? I know that you have made a vow to 
love none but a peri or sultana : others might be 
content to have the sincere love of a pure young heart 
without longing for the daughter of the caliph or the 
queen of the genii. Look at me ; I was fifteen years 
old yesterday, and it may be that I am as beautiful as 
that Ayesha whose name you are constantly mention- 
ing in your dreams ; it is true that my brow is not 
adorned by the magic ruby or by the aigrette of heron- 
plumes, I am not accompanied in my walks by soldiers 
bearing muskets inlaid with silver and coral. I can 
sing, however, I can improvise airs upon the guzla, 
and I dance like Emineh herself. I am to you as a 
devoted sister ; what, then, is wanting to enable me 
to reach your heart ? " 

Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed felt a disturbance in the 
region of his heart as he listened to these words of 
the fair Leila ; he said nothing, however, and seemed 



04 THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 



to be buried in profound meditation. His mind was 
divided between two conflicting considerations : on 
the one hand he could not renounce his cherished 
dream without a pang; on the other, he told himself 
that he would be a madman to bestow his affections 
upon a woman who had trifled with him and left him 
with mocking words, when right there in his house 
there was a being who was, at least, the equal in youth 
and beauty of her whom he had lost. 

Leila, as if awaiting her doom, remained kneeling 
before him, and two great tears coursed silently down 
the poor child's pale cheeks. 

11 Ah ! why did not Mesrour's blade complete the 
work that he had begun she exclaimed, raising her 
hand to her white, slender neck. ° 

Moved by her despairing accent, Mahmoud-Ben- 
Ahmed raised the young slave and imprinted a kiss 
upon her forehead. 

Leila drew herself up as a dove does when it is 
caressed, and taking a position in front of Mahmoud- 
Ben-Ahmed took both his hands in hers and said 
to him : 

" Look at me closely ; don't you think that I am 
very like some one whom you know ? " 

Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed could not help uttering a cry 
of surprise : 

" The face is the same, the eyes are the same ; in a 
word, all the features are those of the princess Ayesha. 
How is it that I have never noticed the resemblance 
until now ? " 

" The looks with which you have favored your poor 
slave up to the present time have been very unobser- 
vant," Leila replied in a tone of gentle raillery. 



THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 95 



" The princess Ayesha herself, now, might send mc 
her blackamoor in his yellow damask robe with the 
selam of love ; I would refuse to follow him." 

" Do you mean it?" said Leila, in a voice more 
melodious than that of Bulbul telling his tale of love 
to his dear rose. " And yet it won't do to be too 
scornful toward that poor Ayesha, who is so like me." 

The only answer that Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed made 
was to press the young slave to his heart. Imagine 
his astonishment, though, when he beheld a gentle 
light emanating from Leila's face, the magic ruby 
glittering upon her brow, and wings, shot with the 
hues of the peacock, sprouting from her lovely 
shoulders ! Leila was a peri J 

" Dear Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed, I am not the princess 
Ayesha, neither am I Leila, the slave. My true name 
is Boudroulboudour. I am a peri of the highest rank, 
as you may see by my ruby and my wings. As I was 
passing through the air one night, over your terrace, 
I heard you express the wish that you might be loved 
by a peri. The daring aspiration pleased me ; igno- 
rant, vulgar mortals, abandoned to terrestrial pleasures, 
are not visited by such dreams of rare delights. I 
determined to make trial of yon, and I assumed the 
disguise of Ayesha and of Leila to see if you would 
recognize me and love me in my human garb. 
Your heart was more clear-sighted than your mind 
and your goodness was stronger than your vanity. 
The devotedness of the slave made you prefer her 
above the sultana ; it was what I wished to see you 
do. At one time I was seduced by the beauty of 
your verse and was on the point of betraying myself, 
but I feared that you were but a poet enamored of 



56 THE THOUSAND AND SECOND NIGHT. 



your own imagination and your rhymes, and I left you 
with an affectation of haughty disdain. It was your 
wish to marry Leila, the slave : Boudroulboudour, 
the peri, takes it upon her to replace her. I will be 
Leila for all the world beside and peri for you alone, 
for I have your happiness at heart and the world would 
never forgive you the enjoyment of a felicity greater 
than its own. Fairy though I be, it would tax all 
my powers to protect you against the envy and the 
wickedness of mankind." 

These conditions were rapturously accepted by 
Mahmoud-Ben-Ahmed, and the wedding-feast was 
celebrated just as if he had really married little Leila. 

Such is substantially, the story that I dictated to 
Scheherazade, with the assistance of Francesco. 

" How did the Sultan like your Arab story, and 
what has become of Scheherazade ? " 

" I have never seen her since." 

I am afraid that Schahriar did not like the story 
and gave orders, in earnest, this time, to chop off the 
poor Sultana's head. 

Friends of mine, returning from Bagdad, have told 
me that they saw a woman sitting on the steps of a 
mosque, whose craze it was to think that she was 
Dinarzarde of the Thousa7id and 0?ie Nig/its, and that 
she kept repeating these words over and oven: 

" Sister, if you are not sleeping, tell us, I pray you, 
one of those pretty stories that you know so well." 

She would wait a few moments, turning her head 
and listening intently, and as she received no answer 
would begin to weep, then would dry her eyes with a 
gold-embroidered handkerchief, all stained with spots 
of blood. 



IL 

VlCCOLO DI Madama Lucrezia. 

PROSPER MERIMEE. 



1WAS twenty-three years old when I set out for 
Rome. My father gave me a dozen letters of 
introduction, one alone of which, that was no less 
than four pages long, was sealed. It bore the address : 
" For the Marquise Aldobrandi." 

"I wish you to write," my father said to me, " and 
let me know if the marquise still retains her good 
looks." 

Now, ever since childhood I had been accustomed 
to see a miniature that hung in my father's study, 
over the fireplace, the portrait of a very pretty woman, 
wearing her hair in powder and crowned with an ivy- 
wreath and with a tiger-skin thrown over her shoulders. 
At the bottom was the inscription: "Roma, 18 — ." 
Attracted by the singularity of the costume, I had 
many a time inquired who the lady was. The 
answer always came : 

" It is a bacchante." 

But this answer was not at ail satisfactory to me ; 
1 even suspected the existence of a secret, for at that 
question, innocent as it was, my mother would purse 



. 97 



9 8 IL VICCOLO DI MADAM A LUCREZIA. 



her lips and my father's countenance assume an 
aspect of seriousness. 

On this occasion, as he handed me the sealed letter, 
he cast a furtive look at the portrait ; I involuntarily 
followed his example, and the idea came into my head 
that that powdered bacchante might be no other than 
the Marquise Aldobrandi. As I was beginning to 
have some insight into the things of this world, I drew 
all sorts of conclusions from my mother's manner and 
from that glance of my father's. 

When I reached Rome, the first of my letters that I 
presented was the marquise's. She lived in a hand- 
some palace near the place Saint Marc. * 

I handed my letter and my card to a servant in yel- 
low livery, who ushered me into a large, dark and 
gloomy drawing-room, rather scantily furnished. In 
Rome, however, in all the palaces there are paintings 
by distinguished masters. This salon contained quite 
a number of such pictures, several of which were 
well worthy of attention. 

The first that I remarked was. a portrait of a 
woman, which seemed to me to be a Leonardo da Vinci. 
The richness of its frame and of the ebony easel upon 
which it stood showed conclusively enough that it was 
considered the gem of the collection. As the mar- 
quise was slow in making her appearance I had time 
to make a leisurely examination of it. I even carried 
it to a window so as to get a more favorable light on it. 
It was evidently a portrait and not a product of the 
imagination, for fancy never conceives such physiog- 
nomies as that : a beautiful woman, with rather thick 
lips, eyebrows that almost met, and an expression 
that was lofty and at the same time caressing. In the 



IL VICCOLO DI MA DAM A LUCREZIA. 99 



bottom corner was an escutcheon surmounted by a 
ducal coronet. What struck me most, however, was 
that the costume, with the exception of the powder, 
was the same as that of my father's bacchante. 

I still had the portrait in my hand when the mar- 
quise entered the room. 

" Just like his father ! " she exclaimed, as she came 
toward me. " Ah ! those Frenchmen ! those French- 
men ! Scarcely inside my- door, and he already has 
his hand on Madame Lucre* ce ! " 

I was vehement in apologizing for my temerity and 
involved myself in a long eulogistic disquisition upon 
the chef d\xuvrc of Leonardo that I had had the bold- 
ness to remove from its place. 

" It is in fact a Leonardo," said the marquise, "and 
it is the portrait of the too famous Lucrezia Borgia. 
Your father used co admire it more than all the rest of 
my collection. But, good heavens ! what a resem- 
blance ! It seems to me as if I were looking on your 
father as he was twenty -five years ago. How is he ? 
What is he doing ? Won't he come to Rome to see 
us some day ? " 

Although the marquise had neither powder in her 
hair nor tiger-skin upon her shoulders, I recognized 
in her my father's bacchante at the very first glance, 
by sheer force of genius. Twenty-five years or so 
had been unable completely to efface the traces of 
what had once been a great beauty. Her expression 
alone had changed, like her toilette. She was dressed 
all in black, and her triple chin, her sedate smile, her 
mingled air of cheerfulness and solemnity, told me 
that she was become devout. 

Her reception of me, however, was as affectionate 



IOO IL VICCOLO DI MADAM A LUCREZIA. 



as it well could be. In three words she placed at my 
disposal her house, her purse, her friends, among 
whom she named several cardinals. 

" Look upon me as your mother," she said. " Your 
father charges me to keep an eye on you and advise 
your inexperience." 

To prove to me that she did not consider her charge 
a sinecure, she began forthwith to put me on my 
guard against the perilous attractions that Rome has 
for a young man of my age and exhorted me strenu- 
ously to avoid them. I was to shun bad company, 
artists in particular, and associate only with such per- 
sons as she should recommend to me. In a word, she 
gave me a sermon under three heads. I replied re- 
spectfully and with the proper amount of hypocrisy. 

As I was rising to take leave : 

" I regret," she said, " that my son the marquis is 
just now absent at our country-place in the Romagna, 
but I wish to make you acquainted with my second 
son, Don Ottavio, who will soon be a monsignor. I 
hope that you will like him and that you will be 
friends together, as you should be — — " And she 
added hurriedly : " For you are of nearly the same 
age, and he is a quiet, steady young man, like your- 
self." 

She sent at once to summon Don Ottavio. I be- 
held a tall, pale young man of melancholy aspect, who 
never took his eyes from the floor, already exhaling an 
odor of monkish hypocrisy. 

The marquise, without giving him a chance to say 
a word, made me the most courteous proffers of ser- 
vice in his name. He confirmed every one of his 
mother's words with alow bow, and it was agreed that 



IL VICCOLO DI MAD AM A LUCREZIA. i°l 



he should come and take me next morning for a ramble 
about the city and bring me back to the Palace Aldo- 
brandi for a family dinner. 

I had scarcely taken twenty steps in the street* 
when some one behind me shouted in an imperious 
tone : 

" Don Ottavio, where are you going alone at such an 
hour as this ? " 

I turned my head and beheld a portly abbe who was 
staring at me with all his eyes. 

" I am not Don Ottavio/' I said to him. 

The abbe bowed almost to the ground and was pro- 
fuse in his apologies ; a moment later I saw him enter 
the Palace Aldobrandi. I went my way, not over well 
pleased to have been taken for a sucking mon- 
signor. 

Notwithstanding the marquise's admonitions, per- 
haps even because of them, one of the first things that 
i did was to hunt up the dwelling-place of an artist of 
my acquaintance, and I spent an hour in his atelier 
conversing with him upon the facilities for amusement, 
innocent or otherwise, that Rome had to offer. I 
turned the conversation upon the Aldobrandi. 

The marquise, he told me, after having been very 
frivolous in her younger days, had devoted her atten- 
tion to spiritual things when she saw that there were 
no more conquests in store for her. Her elder son was 
a brute who spent his time in hunting and taking care 
of the money that was paid in to him by the tenants of 
his extensive property. They were pursuing a course 
to make an idiot of Don Ottavio, the second son, and 
intended to make a cardinal of him some day. In the 
meanwhile he was handed oyer to the Jesuits. He 



102 IL VICCOLO DI MADAM A LUCREZIA. 



never left the house unattended ; he was forbidden to 
look at a woman or to stir a step out of doors without 
having at his heels an abbe who had trained him for the 
. service of God and who, after having been the last 
amico of the marquise, now ruled her household with 
an authority that was almost despotic. 

The next morning Don Ottavio, accompanied by 
the Abbe Negroni, the individual who the day before 
had mistaken me for his pupil, came with a carriage 
and offered me his services as cicerone. 

The first monument that we stopped to inspect was 
a church. There Don Ottavio, following the example 
of his abbe, kneeled, beat his breast and made in- 
numerable signs of the cross. Upon arising he pointed 
out to me the various frescoes and statues and dis- 
coursed upon them like a man of taste and good sense. 
I was agreeably surprised. We began to converse 
and his talk pleased me. We had been speaking 
Italian for some time ; all at once he said to me in 
French : 

"My tutor does not understand a word of your 
language ; let us talk French ; we shall be more at 
our ease." 

It seemed as if the young man in changing his 
idiom had suffered a change of nature. Nothing in 
his conversation savored of the priest. I seemed to 
be listening to one of our provincial politicians of a 
liberal turn. I noticed that he rattled off everything 
in one unvarying monotonous tone of voice, and that 
this tone was frequently in strange contrast with the 
liveliness of his expressions. This was apparently a 
habit assumed for the purpose of mystifying Negroni, 
who kept asking us from time to time what we were 



IL VICCOLO DI MAD AM A LUCREZIA. 103 



talking about. It may be imagined that the trans- 
lations which we gave him were of the freest. 

We saw a young man in violet stockings pass by. 

" Behold," said Don Ottavio, "our patricians of the 
present day. Degrading livery ! and in a few months 
I shall be wearing it ! What happiness/' he added, 
after a momentary silence, " what happiness to live in 
a country like yours ! Were I a Frenchman, perhaps 
I might some day become a deputy." 

This noble ambition inspired me with a strong in- 
clination to laugh, which having been noticed by our 
abbe, I was obliged to explain to him that we were 
talking of the blunder of an archaeologist who had 
mistaken a statue by Bernini for an antique. 

We returned to the Palace Aldobrandi for dinner. 
We had scarcely swallowed our coffee when the 
marquise made her excuses tome in behalf of her son, 
who was compelled to retire to his apartment on ac- 
count of certain pious observances. I was left alone 
with her and the Abbe Negroni who, buried in a great 
easy-chair, slept the sleep of the just. The marquise, 
meanwhile, was questioning me in detail upon my 
father, upon Paris, upon my past life and my plans for 
the future. She gave me the impression of being 
amiable and kind-hearted, but rather too inquisitive, 
and, in particular, too much interested in my religious 
well-being. She spoke Italian with admirable purity, 
though, and I received from her a fine lesson in pro- 
nunciation, which I promised myself to repeat without 
loss of time. 

I often returned to see her. Almost every morning 
I would go to visit the antiquities in company with her 
son and the everlasting Negroni, and in the evening 



104 IL VJCCOLO DI MADAM A LUCREZIA. 



would dine with them at the Palace Aldobrandi. The 
marquise received but little society and that little con- 
sisted almost entirely of ecclesiastics. 

On one occasion, however, she presented me to a 
German lady, a fresh convert to the faith and her in- 
timate friend. This was a Madame de Strahlenheim, 
an extremely handsome person who had made Rome 
her dwelling-place for a long time. While these ladies 
were discussing the merits of a famous preacher I 
was scrutinizing the portrait of Lucrcce by the light 
of a lamp, when I thought it incumbent on me to put 
in my word. 

" What eyes ! M I exclaimed ; " one would almost 
swear that he saw those lids move ! " 

At this rather high-flown hyperbole, which I put 
forth with a view to impress Madame de Strahlenheim 
with an idea of my connoisseurship, she started with 
affright and hid her face in her handkerchief. 

" What ails you, my dear ?" said the marquise. 

"Ah, nothing! only what this gentleman has just 
said ! " 

She was at once overwhelmed with questions, and 
once she admitted that the expression I had made 
use of reminded her of a frightful story, she was 
obliged to tell it. It was briefly as follows : 

Madame de Strahlenheim had a sister-in-law named 
Wilhelmine who was engaged to a young man of 
Westphalia, Julius de Katzenellenbogen, a volunteer 
in General Kleist's division. (It afflicts me to have to 
repeat so many barbarous cognomens, but it is a fact 
that these marvelous stories never happen except to 
people with unpronounceable names.) 

Julius was an extremely nice young man ? stuffed 



1L VICCOLO DI MADAM A LUCREZIA. 



full with patriotism and metaphysics. When he left 
for the army he had given Wilhelmine his portrait and 
Wilhelmine had given him hers, which he wore con- 
stantly upon his heart. That sort of thing is practiced 
quite extensively in Germany. 

On the 13th of September, 1813, at about five o'clock 
in the afternoon, Wilhelmine was at Cassel, in a salon 
with her mother and sister-in-law, busy with her knit- 
ting. Without interrupting her work she would 
frequently glance at the portrait of her betrothed, 
which she had laid upon a small work-table that stood 
in front of her. All at once she uttered a fearful 
shriek, carried her hand to her heart, and fainted. 
It was with the greatest difficulty that they succeeded 
in bringing her to, and as soon as she could speak : 

"Julius is dead ! " she exclaimed. " Julius has 
been killed ! " 

She declared, and the horror that was depicted on 
all her lineaments was sufficient proof of the earnest- 
ness of her conviction, that she *had seen the portrait 
close its eyes, and that at the same moment she had 
suffered an unspeakable pang, as if a red-hot iron had 
been thrust into her heart. 

Every one strove, to no purpose, to make it clear 
to her that her vision could have no connexion with 
reality and that she should attach no importance to 
it. The poor child was inconsolable ; she passed the 
night in tears and next day insisted on putting on 
mourning, as if already assured of the misfortune 
that had been revealed to her. 

Two days after that the news came of the bloody 
battle of Leipzic. Julius sent his betrothed a note 
dated the 13th, at three o'clock in the afternoon. 



lo6 ft VICCOLO Dl M ADA MA LUCREZIA. 



He had not been wounded, had distinguished himself 
in the action and had just entered Leipzic, where he 
was expecting to spend the night at headquarters 
and would consequently be out of the way of all 
danger. This letter, reassuring as it was, did not 
serve to remove Wilhelmine's apprehensions, who, 
noticing that it was dated at three o'clock, persisted 
in believing that her lover had died at five. 

The unfortunate girl was not mistaken. It soon 
became known that Julius had been intrusted with 
an order to deliver ; he had left Leipzic at half-past 
four, and three-fourths of a league from the city, on 
the other side of the Elster, one of the enemy's strag- 
glers had fired at him, from his hiding-place in a 
ditch, and killed him. The ball, on its way to the 
young man's heart, had pierced Wilhelmine's portrait 
and destroyed it. 

" And what became of the poor young lady ? " I 
asked Madame de Strahlenheim. 

" Oh ! she was very, very ill. She is married now 
to M. de Werner, the councilor, and should you ever 
go to Dessau she will show you Julius' portrait." 

" All that is the work of the devil," said the abbe, 
who had been sleeping with one eye open during 
Madame de Strahlenheim's story. " He who used to 
make the old pagan oracles talk can very well cause 
the eyes of a portrait to move when he sees fit. It is 
less than twenty years ago that an Englishman was 
choked to death by a statue at Tivoli." 

" By a statue ! " I exclaimed ; " and how was 
that?" 

u It was an English viilord who had been making 
excavations at Tivoli. He had dug up a statue of one 



IL VICCOLO DI MAD AM A LUCREZIA. 107 



of the empresses, Agrippina, Messalina, — it don't 
make much difference whom. The sum and substance 
of it was that he had her carried home to his abode 
and by dint of looking at her and admiring her he 
became mad. All those Protestant gentlemen are 
more than half mad, any way. He used to call her 
his wife, his ' milady,' and he. would kiss her, all of 
marble though she was. He said that the statue came 
to life every night for his sake, and this went on until 
one morning they found milord stone dead in his bed. 
Well, you would not believe it, but there was another 
Englishman foolish enough to buy that statue. If it 
had been my case I would have had the thing burned 
for lime." 

When people once get fairly started on the subject 
of supernatural adventures they never know when to 
stop. Every one had his story to tell. I made my 
own contribution to the cycle of blood-curdling tales, 
and the result was that when the time came for us to 
separate we were all pretty well worked up and im- 
bued with respect for the power of his satanic majesty. 

I started on foot to reach my lodging, and in order 
to get into the Rue du Corso, took a little tortuous 
lane through which I had never yet passed. It was 
quite deserted. All that was to be seen were long 
garden walls and a few houses of mean appearance, 
in no one of which was a light visible. The bells had 
just struck midnight ; it was very dark. I was in the 
middle of the street, walking at a good round pace, 
when I heard a faint sound, a si I just above my head, 
and at the same moment a rose fell at my feet. I 
raised my eyes, and, notwithstanding the darkness, 
discovered a woman dressed in white standing .at a 



io8 !L VICCOLO DI MADAM A LUCRE 11 A. 



window with her arm extended in my direction. We 
Frenchmen are regarded with very kindly eyes in for- 
eign lands, and our fathers, who vanquished all Eu- 
rope, have comforted us with traditions very flattering 
to our national vanity. It was my pious belief that 
every German, Spanish or Italian lady would kindle 
up like so much tinder at the mere sight of a French- 
man. To tell the truth, in those days I was pretty 
much like the rest of my countrymen, and then, be- 
sides, had not the rose spoken clearly enough ? 

" Madame," said I, in a low voice, picking up the 
rose, "you have dropped your bouquet." 

But the woman had already disappeared and the 
window had closed without making the slightest noise. 
I did what any one else in my place would have done. 
I sought the nearest door ; it was only two steps from 
the window, and having found it I waited for some- 
one to come and open it for me. Five minutes passed 
in deep silence. Then I coughed, then I scratched 
gently with my finger nails upon the wood, but the 
door did not open. I examined it more closely, 
hoping'to discover a key or a latch ; to my great sur- 
prise I found that it was fastened with a padlock. 

" The jealous husband is not come home yet," I 
said to myself. 

I picked up a small pebble and threw it against the 
window ; it struck a w r ooden shutter and fell back at 
my feet. 

" The deuce ! " I thought, " do the Roman ladies 
imagine that folks go about carrying ladders in their 
pockets ? That is a custom that I never heard speak 
of/" 

I waited several minutes longer with equally fruit- 



IL VICCOLO DI MAD AM A LUCREZIA. log 



less results, only once or twice it seemed to me that 
the shutter shook a little, as if someone on the inside 
were trying to put it back in order to obtain a glimpse 
into the street. At the expiration of a quarter of an 
hour, my patience being exhausted, I lit a cigar and 
went my way, not, however, until I had carefully noted 
the location of the house of the padlock. 

When I came to reflect upon this adventure the fol- 
lowing morning I reached these conclusions : A young 
Roman lady, probably of surpassing beauty, had 
caught sight of me in my strolls about the city and 
fallen a victim to my poor charms. If she had 
selected no other means of declaring her flame than 
the gift of a mystic flower, the reason w r as that she 
had been restrained by her decorous modesty, or it 
may have been that she was prevented by the presence , 
of some old duenna, or perhaps by an accursed guard- 
ian, like Rosina's Bartolo. I made up my mind that 
I would lay siege according to rule to the house in- 
habited by this infanta. 

With this fine project in my head I brushed my 
hair so as to give myself a conquering aspect and 
started forth from my lodging. I had put on my new 
frock coat and a pair of yellow gloves. Thus attired, 
with my hat cocked over my ear and the faded rose in 
my button-hole, I turned my steps toward the street 
of which, as yet, I knew not the name, but which I had 
no difficulty in finding again. A signboard fastened 
up over the head of a Madonna informed me that it 
was called il viccolo di Madama Lucrezia. 

The name took me aback. I immediately remem- 
bered the portrait by Leonardo da Vinci and the stories 
of presentiments and diabolical doings generally that 



Iio IL I' I C COLO DI MA DAM A LUCREZIA. 



had been told at the marquise's the night before. 
Then I reflected that there are loves that are predes- 
tined in heaven. Why should not the object of my 
affections be named Lucrece ? What reason was there 
why she should not be like the Lucrece in the Aldo- 
brandi gallery ? 

It was broad day, I was but a couple of steps away 
from a charming young lady, and no thought of ev'l 
intruded upon the emotion that I experienced. 

I was before the house. It bore the number 13 — 
an omen of ill. Alas ! it did not answer in the slightest 
degree to the idea that I had formed from having seen 
it by night. It was not a palace, very far from it. I 
beheld an inclosure of moss-covered walls, blackened 
by time, behind which rose the branches of a few ill- 
. cared-for fruit trees. At one corner of the inclosure 
stood a pavilion of a single story, with two windows 
opening on the street, both of them closed by old 
wooden shutters reinforced on the outside by numer- 
ous iron bars. The door was low, surmounted by an 
obliterated escutcheon, and was made fast, as it had 
been the night before, by a huge padlock attached to 
a chain. On this door was the inscription, written in 
chalk : This house for sale or to let. 

And yet I could not be mistaken ; on that side of 
the street the houses were so few in number as to 
render any confusion impossible. It was my padlock, 
beyond a doubt, and in addition two rose-leaves upon 
the pavement, close beside the door, indicated the 
very spot where my loved one had signaled me her 
declaration, and at the same time bore witness to the 
fact that no one ever swept the space before the house. 

I questioned some poor people of the neighborhood 



IL VtCG&LP DI MADAM A LUCREZIA, I/I I 



to learn where the custodian of this mysterious dwell- 
ing might live. 

" Not here," was the abrupt answer that I re- 
ceived. 

My question seemed to be unwelcome to those 
whom I interrogated, and that only served to excite 
my curiosity still further. Keeping on from door to 
door, I wound up by entering a kind of dark cavern 
where there was an old woman who might have been 
suspected of being a witch, for she had a black cat 
and was cooking some indistinguishable mess in a 
kettle. 

" You wish to see the house of Madame Lucrece ?" 
said she. " It is I who have the keys." 
"Well, show it to me." 

"Would you be wanting to hire it ? " she asked, 
smiling with a rather doubtful air. 
" Yes, if it suits me." 

" It won't suit you. But come, will you give me a 
paul if I show it to you ? " 
" I shall be very glad to." 

Upon this assurance she arose nimbly from her 
bench, took from its place on the wall a key that was 
quite covered with rust, and conducted me to the door 
of No. 13. 

"Why," I asked her, "do they call this house the 
house of Lucrece ? " 

The old woman replied with a sneer : " Why do 
they call you foreigner? Isn't it because you are a 
foreigner ? " 

" V ery well ; but who was this Madame Lucrece ? 
Was she a Roman lady ? " 

" What ! You come to Rome and have never heard 



1T2 /£ VJCCOLO DI MA DA MA LUCREZIA. 



of Madame Lucrece ? I will tell you her story when 
we get inside the house. But here is some more of 
the devil's work ! I don't know what has got into this 
key, it won't turn. Try it yourself." 

It was a long time, in fact, since the lock and the 
key had seen anything of each other. Still, by dint of 
thrice gritting my teeth very hard and indulging in 
profanity a similar number of times, I succeeded in 
turning the key in the lock, but I tore my yellow 
gloves and sprained the palm of my hand. We 
entered a dark passage-way which afforded access to 
several low apartments. . 

The ceilings, intricately paneled, were covered with 
spiders' webs, beneath which some traces of gilding 
were with difficulty to be distinguished. The smell of 
mold that exhaled from all the rooms demonstrated 
conclusively that they had been untenanted for a very 
long time. Not an article of furniture was to be seen. 
Some strips of old leather were hanging in streamers 
from the sweating walls. I judged from the carvings 
on some brackets and the shape of the chimney- 
pieces that the house dated back to the fifteenth cen- 
tury, and it is likely that in former days its decora- 
tions had had some pretensions to elegance. The 
Avindows, with very small panes, most of them broken, 
had an outlook on the garden, where I distinguished 
a rose tree in bloom, together with some fruit trees 
and an abundance of broccoli. 

When I had inspected all the apartments of the 
rez-de-chausste I ascended to the floor above, where I 
had seen my fair unknown. The old woman en- 
deavored to prevent me, saying that there was nothing 
to be seen there and that the staircase was in very 



IL VIC COLO DI MAD AM A LUCREZIA. 1 13 



bad condition, but seeing that I was determined she 
followed me, though with visible reluctance. The 
rooms on this floor were very like those below, only 
they were not so damp ; the windows and the floor, 
too, were in a better state of preservation. In the 
room that I entered last there was a large fauteuil in 
black leather, which, strange to say, was not covered 
with dust. I seated myself in it, and finding the place 
a comfortable one to listen to a story in, requested 
the old crone to tell me that of Madame Lucrece ; 
but first, in order to refresh her memory, I made her 
a present of a few pauls. She coughed, wiped her 
nose, and started off after this fashion : 

"In the time of the pagans, Alexander being 
emperor, there was a girl who was as beautiful as the 
day and whom they called Madame Lucrece. See, 
there she is ! " 

1 turned about quickly. The hag pointed to a 
carved bracket that sustained the main beam of the 
apartment. It was a siren of very clumsy execution. 

"Dame" the old woman went on, " she liked to 
enjoy herself, she did, and as her father might have 
seen fit to make a fuss about it she had this house 
built for herself where we are now. 

" Every night she would hasten down from the 
Quirinal and come here to have a good time. She 
would seat herself by that window, and whenever there 
passed along the street a handsome cavalier, like your- 
self, monsieur, she would call him in ; you can imagine 
whether he was well received. But men are talkative, 
some of them are, at least, and they might have done 
her harm with their babbling, So, she took steps to 
make that all right. When she had said good-night 



114 IL VICCOLO DI MAD AM A LUCREZIA. 



to the gallant her bravos were there, waiting on the 
stairs by which we came up. They finished him off 
for you, then they buried him for you in those broccoli 
beds. A/fez, they have turned up their bones, right 
there in that garden ! 

" This business lasted for some time. One evening, 
though, look you, along comes her brother, whose 
name was' Tarquinius Sixtus, and passes beneath her 
window. She does not recognize him. She calls him 
in. He ascends the stair. At night all cats are gray. 
As it had been with the others, so it was with him. 
But he had left his pocket-handkerchief behind him, 
on which his name was written. 

" No sooner had she seen the wickedness that they 
had been guilty of than she was seized with despair, 
so, quick she unclasps her garter and hangs herself to 
that beam there. Well, there you have a fine example 
for young folks ! " 

While the old woman was thus confounding the 
centuries, and mixing up the Tarquins and the Bor- 
gias, I had my eyes fixed on the floor. I had dis- 
covered there a few rose petals, still quite fresh, which 
gave me food for reflection. 

" Who is it that cultivates this garden ?" I asked 
the crone. 

" My son, sir, who is gardener to M. Vanozzi, the 
gentleman who owns the garden next door. M. 
Vanozzi is always in the Maremma ; he don't ever 
come to Rome nowadays. That is why the garden is 
not kept in better order. My son is with him — and 
I'm afraid that they won't return very soon," she 
added, with a sigh. 

" So M. Vanozzi keeps him occupied, does he ? " 



IL VICCOLO DI MA DAM A LUCREZIA. US 



u Ah ! he is a strange man, and he gives my son 
too many things to do. I am afraid that there is 
something wrong going on Ah, my poor boy ! ** 

She made a step toward the door as if desirous of 
ending the conversation. 

" No one lives here, then ? " I continued, stopping- 
he r. 

" Not a soul." 

" And why is that ? " 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

" Listen," said I, giving her a piastre, "tell me the 
truth. There is a woman who comes here." 

" Holy Jesus, a woman ! " 

" Yes, I saw her last night. I spoke to her." 

" Holy Madonna ! " cried the old woman, making 
a dash for the stairs ; " it must have been Madame 
Lucrece ! Let us go, let us go, good gentleman ! I 
had been told that she walked by night, but I did not 
wish to tell you of it for fear of doing the owner a 
bad turn, for I thought that you were inclined to hire 
the house." 

I could not keep her. She was in haste to leave 
the house, in order, she said, to carry a wax candle 
to the nearest church without delay. I let her go, 
and left the house myself, despairing of learning any- 
thing further from her. 

It may be imagined that I did not tell my story at 
the Aldobrandi palace : the marquise was too prudish, 
and Don Ottavio was too much wrapped up in his 
politics to be a competent adviser in a love affair. I 
went and hunted up my painter, however, who knew 
all Rome, from the cedar to the hyssop, and asked 
him what he thought of it, 



Il6 IL V1CC0L0 DI MADAM A LUCREZIA. 



" I think," he said, "that you have seen the phan- 
tom of Lucrece Borgia. What a risk you incurred ! 
Dangerous as she was while living, just think for a 
moment what she must be now that she is dead ! It 
is enough to make one shake in his shoes." 

" Joking apart, what could it have been ?" 

"That is to say that the gentleman is a philosopher 
and an atheist and has no faith in the things most 
worthy of respect. Very good ; what say you then 
to this other hypothesis? Let us suppose that the old 
harridan lends her house to women who are not above 
addressing gentlemen who pass along the street. 
There have been old women depraved enough to ply 
that trade." 

" That sounds reasonable enough," I said, "but then 
I must have a very goody-goody air for the old woman 
not to have made me the offer of her services. The 
supposition is offensive to me. And then, my dear 
fellow, remember how the house was furnished. It 
could scarcely please anyone unless he were possessed 
with a devil." 

" In that case it is a spook, beyond the shadow of a 
doubt. Hold on, though ! Here is just one hypoth- 
esis remaining : you made a mistake in the house. 
Parbleu ! I have it : near a garden ? a little low 
door ? Well, it is my old friend Rosina. It is less 
than a year and a half ago that she was the principal 
ornament of that street. It is true that she has gone 
blind, but that's a mere detail ; she still has a very 
handsome profile." 

None of these explanations were satisfactory to me. 
When evening came I walked slowly past the house of 
Lucrece. I saw nothing. I turned and passed it 



JL VICCOLO DI MADAM A LUCRE ZI A. H7 

again, with no better result. Three or four evenings 
in succession, on my way home from the Aldobrandi 
palace, did I stop and cool my heels beneath those 
windows, but always to no purpose. The mysterious 
inhabitant of the house No. 13 was beginning to 
fade from my memory when, passing through the 
viccolo about midnight, I distinctly heard a low 
woman's laugh behind the window-shutter at the very 
spot where the fair flower-girl had appeared to me. 
Twice I heard that low laugh, and I could not help be- 
ing a little frightened when I saw a troop of cowled 
penitents, bearing wax-candies and conveying a dead 
body to the grave, make their appearance at the other 
end of the street. When they were gone by I posted 
myself as sentry beneath the window, but then there 
was nothing more to be heard, I tried throwing 
pebbles, I even used my voice with more or less dis- 
tinctness ; no one appeared, and a shower coming up 
just then obliged me to beat a retreat. 

I am ashamed to tell how many times I stopped in 
front of that accursed house, without ever succeed- 
ing in solving the riddle that was bothering me. 
Only on one occasion did I pass through the viccolo 
of Madame Lucrezia in company with Don Ottavio 
and his inseparable abbe. 

" There is the house of Lucr^ce," said I. 

I noticed that he changed color. 

" Yes/' he replied, u an ill-defined popular tradition 
has it that Lucrezia Borgia had her ' little house ' 
here. If those walls could only speak what horrors 
they might reveal ! And yet, my friend, when I com- 
pare that time with our own, I can scarce help regret- 
ting it. There were Romans sttli in the days of 



1 18 IL VI CCO 10 DI MADAM A LUCREZIA. + 



Alexander VI. ; to-day they have ceased to exist. 
Caesar Borgia was a monster, but he was a great man ; 
it was his aim to expel the barbarians from Italy, and 
had his father lived, perhaps he might have succeeded 
in accomplishing that grand design. Ah ! would that 
Heaven might grant us a tyrant like Borgia to delrver 
us from these human despots who are reducing us 
to the level of the brutes." 

When Don Ottavio once took his flight into the re- 
gions of politics there was no such thing as stopping 
him. When we had reached the Place du Peuple his 
panegyric upon enlightened despotism was still run- 
ning its course, but we were a hundred leagues away 
from my Lucrece. 

On a certain evening when I had gone at a very 
late hour to pay my respects to the marquise, she 
told me that her son was indisposed and requested 
ine to go upstairs to his room. I found him lying 
upon his bed, fully dressed, and reading a French 
newspaper that*! had sent him that morning carefully 
concealed in a volume of the Fathers of the Church. 
For sometime past the collection of the Fathers had 
served as a vehicle for those communications that had 
to be kept from the eyes of the abbe and the marquise. 
On those days when the French mail was due a ser- 
vant would bring me a folio volume, and I would re- 
turn another into which I had slipped a newspaper 
that had been loaned me by the secretary of the em- 
bassy. It was the means of giving the marquise and 
her director an exalted idea of my piety, and now and 
then they tried to induce me to talk theology. 

After I had conversed with Don Ottavio for a while, 
noticing that he was greatly agitated and that even 



IL VICCOLO DI MADAM A LUCREZIA. 119 



politics failed to interest him and secure his attention, 
I advised him to undress and go to bed and bade him 
adieu. The weather was cold and I had no cloak. 
Don Ottavio urged me to take his, so I accepted it 
and received a lesson in the difficult art of draping 
one's self in the true Roman fashion. 

I left the Aldobrandi palace, muffled up to the 
ears. I had barely taken a few steps along the side- 
walk of the Place Saint Marc when a man of the peo- 
ple, whom I had observed sitting upon a bench by 
the palace door, came up to me and handed me a 
paper with writing on it. 

" For the love of God," he said, "read this." 

Whereupon he disappeared, running as fast as his 
legs could carry him. 

I had taken the paper, and looked about for a light 
to read it by. By the light of a lamp burning before 
a Madonna I saw that it was a note written in pencil 
and apparently by a trembling hand. With consider- 
able difficulty I managed to decipher the following 
words : 

" Do not come this evening, or we are undone ! 
Everything is known excepting your name. Nothing 
shall ever separate us. 

M Thy LucrIce," 

" Lucnke ! " I exclaimed. " Still Lucrece ! What 
diabolical mystification is there at the bottom of all 
this ? 1 Don't come ! ' But I would like to know what 
road one has to take to reach you, my pretty one." 

While ruminating upon this note I had mechanically 
turned my steps in the direction of the viccolo di 



120 IL VICCOLO Dl MAD AM A LUCREZIA. 



Madama Lucrezia, and soon I found myself in front 
of the house No. 13. 

The little street was in its usual deserted condition 
and there was no sound to break the silence that 
reigned throughout the neighborhood save my foot- 
steps. I halted and raised my eyes toward a window 
that was well known to me. This time I could not 
be mistaken : the shutter was thrown back. 

There was the window wide open. 

I thought that I could descry a human form drawn 
in relief against the dark background of the apart- 
ment. 

" Lucrece, is that you ? M I said in a low voice. 

There was no answer, but I heard a clicking 
sound of which I did not at first understand the 
cause. 

" Is that you, Lucrece ? " I repeated, a little 
louder this time. 

At the same moment I received a terrible blow in 
the chest, a lou<3 report was heard and I found myself 
lying prone upon the pavement. A hoarse voice cried 
to me: 

" Take that from the Signora Lucrece ! " 

And the shutter was closed noiselessly. 

I arose immediately, reeling as I did so, and the 
first thing that I did was to make an inspection of 
myself, fully expecting to find a great hole in the 
middle of my stomach. The cloak was perforated, 
and my coat as well, but the thick folds of heavy cloth 
had served to deaden the force of the ball and I escaped 
with a severe contusion. The idea entered my head 
that a second shot might not be long in coming, so I 
forthwith dragged myself away from that inhospitable 



IL VICCOLO DI MAD AM A LUCREZIA. 1 21 



house, hugging the walls in such a way as to prevent 
any one from securing a fair aim at me. 

I was retiring as rapidly as I was able to, quite 
breathless still, when a man whom I had not noticed, 
owing to his being behind me, came up and took my 
.arm and inquired with much feeling if I was wounded. 
I recognized the voice ; it was Don Ottavio. It was 
not the time for asking questions, however surprised 
I might be at seeing him alone and in the street at 
that hour of the night. I briefly told him that some 
one had fired at me from a certain window that I de- 
scribed and that I had got off with a contusion. 

"It was a mistake ! " he exclaimed. " But I hear 
people coming this way. Are you able to walk ? I 
am lost if we are found together. Still, I will not 
leave you." 

He took me by the arm and dragged me rapidly 
away. We walked, or rather ran, as long as I could 
go, but soon my breath failed me and I was compelled 
to seat myself upon a stone. We luckily chanced to 
be but a little way from a great mansion where there 
was a ball going on. There were* coaches in abun- 
dance standing before the door. Don Ottavio went 
and procured one, helped me into it and went 
with me to my hotel. A large glass of water that I 
drank having quite put me to rights again, I proceeded 
to relate to him in detail everything that had happened 
me before that ill-omened house, from the present of 
a rose down to that of a leaden bullet. 

He listened to my story with his head down, half 
hidden in one of his hands. When I showed him the 
note that I had received he snatched it from me, 
read it eagerly, and again exclaimed : 



122 JL V1CC0L0 DI MAD AM A LUCREZtA. 



u It is all a mistake ! a horrible mistake ! " 

"You must admit, my dear fellow," said I, "that 
it is a very disagreeable one for me, and for you also. 
I narrowly escape being killed, and you have ten or 
a dozen holes punctured in your handsome cloak. 
Heavens ! what a jealous set your countrymen are !>" 

Don Ottavio pressed my hand with an air of com- 
punction and read the note over again without making 
me any answer. 

" Try and see if you can't give me some explana- 
tion of all this business," I said to him. "The deuce 
take me if I can make head or tail of it." 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

" At least," said I, " what am I to do ? To whom 
must I address myself, in this holy city of yours, in 
order to obtain redress against this gentleman who 
blazes away at people in the street without so much 
as stopping to ask what their name is ? I confess 
that it would afford me much delight to be the means 
of having him hanged." 

"Do nothing of the kind ! " he exclaimed. "You 
are not acquainted with this country. Say nothing 
of what has happened you to any one. You would 
be exposing yourself to great danger." 

" How should I be exposing myself ? Morbleu y I 
mean to have my revenge. If I had given the raga- 
muffin any cause for being offended it would have 
been a different matter, but for having picked up a 
rose — in all conscience, I don't deserve a bullet for 
that." 

" Leave the matter to me," said Don Ottavio ; " per- 
haps I may be able to clear up the mystery. But I 
ask you as a favor, as a signal proof of your friend- 



IL VJCCOLO DI MA DAM A LUCREZTA. 123 



ship for me, don't speak of this affair to a living soul. 
Will you promise me that ? " 

He had such an expression of sadness as he ad- 
dressed this supplication to me that I had not the 
courage to refuse him, and so I promised all that he 
desired. He thanked me effusively, and after having 
applied a compress of eau de Cologne to my chest, 
clasped my hand and bade me good-night. 

" Apropos," I asked him just as he was opening 
the door to leave the room, " tell me how it was that 
you happened to be on hand just at the right moment 
to come to my assistance ? M 

" I heard the report," he replied, not without some 
display of embarrassment, "and left the house im- 
mediately, fearing that something might have hap- 
pened you." 

He left me hurriedly, after having again enjoined 
me to secrecy. 

In the morning a surgeon came to look at me, sent, 
doubtless, by Don Ottavio. He prescribed an embro- 
cation, but asked me no question as to the cause that 
had been instrumental in strewing violets upon the 
lilies of my complexion. They are close-mouthed at 
Rome, and being in that city I wished to conform to 
the usages of the inhabitants thereof. 

Several days passed without my having an oppor- 
tunity of conversing freely with Don Ottavio. He was 
preoccupied, even more gloomy than usual, and 
appeared, besides, to endeavor to avoid my questions ; 
he said not a word about the strange inhabitants of 
the viccolo di Madama Lucrezia during our brief and 
infrequent interviews. The day fixed for his ordina- 
tion was drawing near, and I attributed his moodiness 



124 IL VICCOLO DI MADAM A LVCREIIA. 



to his dislike for the profession that was being forced 
upon him. 

For my part, 1 was making my preparations to leave 
Rome in order to go to Florence. When I mentioned 
my impending departure to the Marquise Aldobrandi, 
Don Ottavio, alleging some pretext or other, I have for- 
gotten what, requested me to come up to his room. 
There taking me by my two hands : 

" My dear friend," said he, " if you don't grant me 
the favor that I am about to ask of you I shall cer- 
tainly blow my brains out, for I can see no ether way 
of extricating myself from the difficulty that I am in. 
I am firmly resolved never to put on the hateful coat 
that they want to make me wear. It is my wish to fly 
this country. What I have to ask of you is that you 
will take me with you. You can pass me off as your 
servant ; a single word added to your passport will 
suffice to facilitate my flight." 

At first I tried to dissuade him from his project by 
speaking to him of the grief that he would cause his 
mother, but finding him inexorable in his determina- 
tion I finally promised to take him with me and to 
have the necessary alterations made in my passport. 

" That is not all," he said. "My departure is con- 
tingent also upon the success of an enterprise in 
which I am engaged. You intend to set out day 
after to-morrow ; by that time I shall have been suc- 
cessful, may be, and then I am wholly at your service." 

"You can't have been so mad," I asked him, not 
without uneasiness, " as to have gone and got yourself 
entangled in some conspiracy ? " 

" No," he replied, " the interests at stake are of less 
importance than the fate of my country, but yet they 



JL VICCOLO DI MA DA MA LUCREZJA. 12$ 



are of such weight that on the success of my 
enterprise depend my life and happiness. I cannot 
tell you more just now ; in two days yon shall know 
all."' 

I accepted the situation resignedly, for I was be- 
ginning to become accustomed to mystery. It was 
settled that we were to start at three o'clock in the 
morning and that we were to make no stop until we 
had reached Tuscan territory. 

Convinced that it was useless to go to bed, having 
to start *at such an early hour, I employed the last 
evening that I was to spend in Rome in paying visits 
at all the houses where I had been received. I went 
to take leave of the marquise and shake hands with 
her son, ceremonially and for form's sake. I could 
feel his hand tremble as I took it in my own. He 
said to me in a whisper : 

" At this moment my life is hanging on the toss of 
a penny. When you return to your hotel you will find 
a letter from me. If I am not with you by three 
o'clock precisely, do not wait for me." 
/ 1 was struck by the changed expression of his coun- 
tenance, but I attributed it to a very natural emotion 
on his part at a moment when he was about to sepa- 
rate himself from his family, perhaps for ever. 

I reached my lodging about one o'clock. I desired 
once more to pass through the viccolo of Madame 
Lucrece. There was something white hanging from 
the window where I had beheld two apparitions of 
such different nature. I approached it cautiously. It 
was a knotted rope. Was it an invitation to go and 
say good-by to the signora ? It looked very much 
like it, and the temptation was great. I did not give 



1^6 It VICCOLO DI MAD A MA LUCREZIA. 



way to it, however, remembering the promise that I 
had made Don Ottavio and also, if the truth must 
be told, the unpleasant reception that a much less au- 
dacious proceeding had earned for me a few days be- 
fore. 

I went my way, therefore, but slowly, vexed to lose 
this last occasion of penetrating the mystery of the 
house No. 13. At every step that I took I turned my 
head, fully expecting to see a human form ascending 
or descending by the rope-ladder. Nothing appeared. 
At last I came to the end of theviccolo ; I was about 
to enter the Corso. 

" Adieu, Madame Lucrece," said I, taking off my 
hat to the house that was still visible to me where I 
stood. " Please see if you can't find some other one 
than me upon whom to wreak your vengeance against 
the jealous husband who keeps you in bondage." 

It was striking two when I returned to my hotel. 
The carriage was standing in the courtyard, all packed 
and ready. One of the hotel attendants handed me a 
letter. It was Don Ottavio's, and as it seemed to be 
a long one I thought that it would be better to read 
it in my room, so I told the waiter to go before with 
a light. 

" Monsieur," he said, " the domestic that you spoke 

to us of, he who was to travel with Monsieur 99 

" Well, is he arrived ? " 
" No, sir." 

" He is at the post ; he will come with the 
horses." 

" Monsieur, there came a lady a little while ago who 
asked to speak to Monsieur's domestic. She insisted 
upon going up to Monsieur's apartment, and instructed 



1L V1CC0L0 DI MAD AM A LUCREZIA. 1*1 



me to tell Monsieur's domestic, the very moment that 
he came, that Madame Lucrece is in your room/' 

"In my room ? " I exclaimed, grasping the rail of 
the staircase with all my strength. 

" Yes, Monsieur. And it appears that she is going, 
too, for she gave me a little bundle. I have put it in 
the boot." 

My heart was beating violently. I cannot describe 
the mingled feeling of superstitious terror and curi- 
osity that had taken possession of me. I ascended 
the staircase, step by step. When I reached the first 
story (my room was on the second), the waiter who 
was preceding me made a misstep and the candle 
that he was carrying fell from his hand and was ex- 
tinguished. He begged a million pardons and went 
down to relight it, but I kept on ascending. 

Already my hand was on the handle of my door. I 
hesitated. What new vision was about to greet my 
sight ? More than once the story of the bleeding nun 
had recurred to my memory in the darkness ; was I, 
like Don Alonso, possessed by a demon ? It seemed 
to me that the waiter was horribly slow in returning 
with the candle. 

I opened my door. Praise be to Heaven ! there 
was a light in my bedroom. I passed with rapid 
steps through the small sitting-room from which it 
opened. A glance was sufficient to show me that 
there was no one in my sleeping-room, but I immedi- 
ately heard, close at my heels, light footsteps and the 
rustling of a woman's dress. I think that the hair 
upon my head stood straight on end. I wheeled 
about abruptly. 

A woman, dressed all in white, with a black mantilla 



128 



1L VICCOLO DI MADAM A LUCREZIA. 



over her head, came toward me with outstretched 
arms. 

" Here you are at last, my beloved," she cried, seiz- 
ing my hand. Her own was cold as ice and her 
features bore the pallor of death. I retreated to the 
wall. 

" Holy Virgin ! it is not he ! Ah ! Monsieur, are 
you the friend of Don Ottavio ? M 

At these words everything was made clear. De- 
spite her pallor, the young woman had nothing of the 
air of a phantom. She cast down her eyes, a thing 
which ghosts never do, and held her two hands crossed 
before her in a modest attitude, which led me to be- 
lieve that my friend Don Ottavio was not so much of 
a politician as I had given him credit for being, after 
all. In a word, the time had come for abducting the 
fair Lucrece, and the only role that I was fated to 
play in the adventure was that of confidant. 

Don Ottavio appeared upon the scene a moment 
after, disguised ; the horses came and we started. 
There was no passport for Lucrece, but a woman, and 
a pretty woman at that, never inspires suspicion. 
There was one gendarme, however, who was inclined to 
raise difficulties. I told him that he was a brave fellow 
and that he certainly must have served under the great 
Napoleon. He di3 not deny it, and I made him a 
present of a portrait of that illustrious man, in gold. 
Then it was all plain sailing. 

If I must give you the whole of this story, Don 
Ottavio, the traitor, had made the acquaintance of 
this charming person, who was sister to a certain 
Vanozzi, a wealthy farmer and a man of ill-repute as 
being a little of a liberal and a good deal of a smug- 



IL VICCOLO DI MADAM A LUCREZIA, 129 



gler. Don Ottavio was well aware that, even if his 
relatives had not destined him for the church, they 
would never have consented to let him marry a girl of 
a condition so far beneath his own. 

Love, they say, laughs at locksmiths. The Abbe 
Negroni's pupil succeeded in establishing a secret 
correspondence with* his beloved. Every night he 
made his escape from the Aldobrandi palace, and as 
it would have been too hazardous an undertaking to 
attempt to escalade Vanozzi's house, the two lovers 
made their rendezvous in that of Madame Lucrece, 
the evil reputation of which, moreover, served them 
as a protection against intruders. A little door, con- 
cealed by a fig tree, afforded communication between 
the two gardens. Young, and in love as they were, 
Lucrece and Ottavio never thought of complaining 
of the scantiness of their furniture, which consisted, 
as I think I have already mentioned, of a single old 
leather-covered armchair, 

One evening, while awaiting Don Ottavio, Lucrece 
mistook me for him and made me the present that I 
carried oft in his place. It is true that there was some 
resemblance in height and shape between Don Otta- 
vio and myself. .... Then it came to pass that the 
confounded brother got wind of the affair, but his 
threats were unavailing to make Lucrece divulge the 
name of her lover. You know how he revenged himself, 
and how I thought to pay the scot for the whole party. 
It is useless to tell you how the two lovers " took the 
key of the fields," each in his own way. 

Conclusion. We arrived safely at Florence, ail 
three of us. Don Ottavio married Lucrece and 
started immediately with her for Paris. There my 



130 IL VICCOLO DI MADAM A LUCREZIA. 

father welcomed him with the same cordiality that I 
had received from the marquise. He took it upon 
himself to negotiate a reconciliation between mother 
and son, and was finally successful, though not with- 
out considerable difficulty. The Marquis Aldobrandi 
very opportunely contracted the fever of the Cam- 
pagna and died of it. Ottavio inherited his title and 
fortune, and I was godfather to his first child. 



The -Barrel-organ. 

FRANCOIS COPPEE 



i 

WHAT mournful memories music brings up ! 
How sad are the recollections of other days 
that it evokes ! And how the tears rise in our eyes 
in the gathering twilight of November, at the wail- 
ing of the barrel-organ, as it plays some long-forgot- 
ten polka ! 

An old, old polka that used to set ail Paris dancing 
fifteen years ago, when the number of your years was 
eighteen, madame, or thereabout ! Yes ! you, poor, 
faded blonde, who are wearing a blue velvet hat that 
only looks the shabbier for having new strings, and are 
wheeling your baby — the third, it is — in his little car- 
riage, beneath the leafless lindens that border the 
cheerless boulevard of the suburban quarter where 
you live. 

How pretty you were in the days when the band 
used to play that polka at all the bourgeois frolics, with 
their refreshments of stale cake and glasses of 
sweetened water ! How like you were to a bright 
spring morning, with the pure oval of your face that 

w 



THE BARRLL-ORGAX. 



would not have shamed a Correggio and your beauti- 
ful waved tresses, of the gold of ripened grain, that 
you lost the half of — the pity of it ! — at the birth of 
your second child ! 

Portionless, you were ? Yes, you had no dowry. 
How could it be otherwise with the daughter of an 
honest, second head-clerk, whose recommendation 
from his superiors uniformly consisted of these blight- 
ing words : " A good man in his place, very useful 
and unassuming ; M a poor fellow who, when he went 
with you to your dances, never dared sit down to 
whist at ten sous the point, and was continually feel- 
ing in his waistcoat pocket to see if he had not lost 
the three francs that were to pay the cab-fare home ? 

Portionless ! — Every mirror in the room as you 
made your entry, hanging on your father's arm, ra- 
diant in clouds of pink, gave you assurance that no 
portion was needed in your case. Who would have 
suspected that the mother, detained at home for lack 
of finery, had ironed out your skirt on the dining-room 
table and that your dress was the result of your own 
labors, cut and sewed by your own hands ? Were you 
not gloved up to the elbows ? How could anyone 
have known of the needle-pricks that you had on 
your finger-ends ? 

Listen to the old polka that the broken-winded bar- 
rel-organ is playing in the dim November twilight. 
Does it not remind you of the song of a crazy woman, 
broken by sobs ? 

Many a time were you invited to dance that polka 
by the handsome, dark young man with the military 
mustache, so elegant in his well-cut evening suit, 
whom you used to speak of to yourself in thought as 



THE BARREL-ORGAN. 



133 



Frederic, his baptismal name. He used to ask you to 
dance that polka with him, and the mazurka, too, and 
the waltz. Your voice would tremble a little as you 
answered : " Yes, sir," and your hand would flutter, 
also, as you laid it in his, for he was a young man of 
good family, a pretty hard case, so the rumor was, 
who had fought a duel and whose father had twice 
had to pay his debts. What distinction ! 

How tightly his arm would clasp your waist as he 
led you to the floor, and when you paused for a mo- 
ment to take breath, leaning on his arm with a happy 
smile upon your lips and quickened respiration, how 
your poor little heart would beat as he turned and 
looked you in the eyes and addressed to you in low, 
caressing tones a compliment — upon some trifle, some 
slight detail of your toilette, or the flower that you had 
in your hair — a compliment that was perfectly re- 
spectful in form, but in which you felt there 
lurked some hidden meaning that was cause to you at 
once of fear and pleasure ! 

But a gay young fellow like M. Frederic, alas ! 
had something else to do than waste his time at such 
milk-and-water entertainments. He took himself off 
to other scenes of gayety and you, is it not true ? 
though you refused to admit it even to yourself, were 
sorry. Then two, three, four, five years rolled by. 
You gave up wearing pink dresses, for your cheeks 
were growing pale, and still at the little bourgeois 
parties, where the repertory of dance music never 
changes, they kept playing that old polka that re- 
minded you of M. Frederic, 

At last it became necessary to look at things as 
they were and come to a decision, so you finally 



J 34 



THE BARREL-ORGAN. 



married the bashful young man who had until then 
been the dancing partner of all the scraggy young 
ladies of thirty and upward. In other days it had 
more than once happened you to forget when his turn" 
came for a quadrille, although you had his name 
written down on your little ivory tablets. It was 
rather a feeling of pity, you must admit, that this 
good M, Jules inspired in you at that time, with his 
stiffly starched cravats and his cleaned gloves. You 
married him, though, after all, and he has turned out 
to be an industrious man and a good husband and 
father. He is now second head-clerk, like deceased 
Monsieur your father, and like him he is always 
characterized by his superiors in the same discourag- 
ing terms : *.*A quiet, useful man in his place ; to be 
retained in the service." When you presented him 
with his second boy the poor man was stirred by a 
feeble impulse of ambition, and in the hope to secure 
advancement published a couple of small pamphlets 
upon special subjects, but the powers that be dis- 
charged their obligation toward him by awarding him 
academic honors. 

Three children there are now, — first two boys 
and then a little minx of a daughter who came some- 
time afterward, — and they are a heavy load to 
carry ! The oldest, fortunately, is at college, par- 
tially assisted by state funds ; by dint of strict 
economy the two ends are made to meet. But what 
a monotonous, trivial way of living ! The father 
leaves home early in the morning taking with him his 
breakfast — a sandwich and a little bottle of wine 
and water— in the pocket of his overcoat, for he is 
to give a lesson in geography at a young ladies' 



THE BARREL-ORGAN. 



Ij5 



boarding-school before taking possession of his leather- 
covered chair at the department. You, madame, 
have not the time to stop and think of your grievances, 
and the day is all too short for one who has so much 
to do. And withal, never the least amusement ! 
During all the past year you have been at the play 
but once, and that was last September, when you 
went to see the Domino Noir on free tickets. 

You have accepted the situation and are resigned 
to your fate, doubtless ; but that old polka that the 
organ keeps relentlessly playing reminds you that the 
other afternoon, as you were pushing before you the 
little carriage containing your slumbering baby, just 
as you are doing now, and pursuing your way along 
this same boulevard, you came near being run over 
by a spanking victoria and pair and recognized, well 
protected by his comfortable wraps, that identical M. 
Frederic, the same as of old, with that air of unfailing 
youthfulness that is the property of the fortunate 
ones of this world, and he cast an ugly look at you 
as he shouted : " Stupid ! " to his coachman. 

Truly, that organ is insupportable, is it not? — It 
ceases, however, fortunately, and now the night is 
coming down. At the extremity of the dismal subur- 
ban boulevard, yonder, the gas-jets as they spring into 
light sprinkle with their pale stars the purple mist that 
follows close upon the sunset. It is time to return, 
Madame Jules. Your second son must have come in 
from school by this, and he never masters his morrow's 
lessons before dinner unless you are there. Go home, 
Madame Jules. Your husband will soon be back from 
his office, tired and hungry, and you know full well 
that in your absence the small rnaid at twenty-five 



136 



THE BARREL-ORGAN. 



francs a month would not be equal to the task of 
" warming over " the remains of the roast beef of 
yesterday with potatoes and onions. 

II 

What mournful memories music brings up ! How 
sad are the recollections of other days that it evokes ! 
And how the tears rise to our eyes in the gathering 
twilight of November at the wailing of the barrel- 
organ as it plays some long forgotxen galop ! 

Of what are you thinking, Madame la Comtesse, as 
you listen to it, and why do you stand thus motionless 
at the lofty window of your boudoir, as if some mighty 
hand had fallen and smitten you into stone among 
your musings ? Happy woman that you are, in all 
the plenitude of your beauty of thirty years, say, what 
memories has it for you, that old galop that the wail- 
ing, groaning organ, compeller of dreams, is playing 
down there upon the bleak boulevard, behind the 
naked lindens of your garden ? 

It recalls to you the great amphitheater of " John- 
son's American Circus," with its fringe of intently 
gazing faces, as it used to be in the days of your 
equestrian triumphs. The two negro minstrels have 
brought their comic concert to an abrupt end by 
smashing their violins over each other's head and the 
groom has brought your trick-horse out upon the saw- 
dust track — you remember him, the huge, gentle white 
horse, spotted with black, who used to remind one of 
a raw turkey dressed and stuffed with truffles ? Then 
you make your entree, hand in hand with the ring* 
master, a resplendent being in scarlet coat and hair k 



THE BARREL-QRGA A r . 



la Capoul, with whom you were a little bit in love, as 
you may as well confess, as indeed were all the lady 
performers of the troupe, A quick entrechat of twink- 
ling feet by way of salutation to the public and then 
at a single bound, presto, hop ! there you are erect on 
your great platform of a saddle. There is a crack of 
the whip, a furious storm of sound from the brasses of 
the orchestra, the truffled horse falls into his mechani- 
cal little gallop and hop ! hop ! away you go ! 

What an Olympian creature you were in those 
days, comtesse ! The number of your years was 
seventeen, and you had the legs of the Capitoline 
Venus. What strength and grace ! and that perfec- 
tion of beauty that it takes the New World to produce 
with its crossing and blending of different strains. 
The murmur ran through the throng : " It is the 
beautiful Adah ! the American ! 99 and then, carried 
off your feet by this gale of triumph, you pirouetted 
away more audaciously than ever. 

The first part of the performance always wound 
up with a long, crackling fire of bravos. While the 
assistants were climbing upon their stools with their 
hoops and streamers in preparation for the next part 
of the programme, and the clown was amusing the 
gallery gods by knocking his comrade flat, face down- 
ward, and then picking him up delicately by the seat 
of his trousers, you were making the circuit of the 
ring at a walk, perched on the edge of your saddle as 
lightly as a butterfly. That was the moment that 
afforded the keenest enjoyment to your admirers. 
Proudly erect did you hold your goddess-like head, 
garlanded with flowers, and from the skirts of gauze 
that eddied and swirled about your form your sublime 



*3« 



THE BARREL-ORGAN. 



pedal extremities, incased in pink silk tights, emerged 
as from a cloud. 

It was when you were resting on one of those occa- 
sions that you first^ observed the comte, now your 
husband, then one of the gayest of Parisian men 
about town. There he stood in the passage that led 
to the stables, tall, slender, and irreproachable in his 
closely buttoned overcoat and pearl-gray hat, wearing 
a sprig of lilac in his buttonhole and tapping his lips 
with the gold knob of his little walking-stick. He 
was there again the next day, and the day after that, 
and every day ; and your eyes would sink in confusion 
as their glance met that distracted gaze of his, the de- 
spairing gaze of a man who has lost his head. 

He had lost his head, indeed, but you were neither 
more nor less than an honest, good girl. You had 
become an orphan when five years old, your father, 
the man who did the pole act, having broken his neck 
in a fall. Then the people of the troupe adopted the 
little one of u the profession " and the old Parisian 
clown, Mistigris, taught you your French and a little 
reading and writing. From being the plaything and 
spoiled child of those honest mountebanks, — retaining 
their respect, too, through it all, — you became one of 
the glories of their enterprise. You were gaining a 
livelihood in an honest way, by the display of your 
physical proportions, it is true, but you were virtuous 
for all that, and you remember that evening when the 
comte offered you the turquoise set — in pretty cynical 
terms, it must be confessed — and you came near 
horsewhipping him in front of the elephants' stall in 
presence of all the company. 

Tfyat was the spark in the powder magazine to that 



THE BARREL-ORGAN. 



*39 



man of violent passions. Johnson's American Circus 
was making a tour through France at the time. The 
comte followed it to Orleans, to Tours, to Saumur, to 
Angers, and finally, at Nantes, he capped the climax of 
his folly, just as a Russian might have done, and hav- 
ing neither father nor mother living, carried you off 
and married you. 

Oh, dear ! how dolefully that asthmatic barrel-or- 
gan keeps on grinding out that old galop in the twi- 
light ! 

What was there left to do after the first weeks of 
the delirious honeymoon, that you spent in a lovely 
little village at the seashore ? The men at the Jockey 
Club, down there in the city, were laughing to split 
their sides, and the women of fashion were bursting 
with anger and jealousy behind their fans. The 
comte did the best thing he could under the cir- 
cumstances ; he went into voluntary exile for a few 
years. Ah ! my poor comtesse, how you yawned 
with ennui in that great black palace at Florence, 
where your husband had you trained and taught like 
a little girl, and where you had to stomach so many 
lessons and endure so many instructors. Like the 
grateful woman that you were — alas ! it could not be 
said that you were a loving one — you wished to please 
the comte and make yourself worthy of him, but that, 
of course, required time, and, for all his patience, how 
your husband used to wound you with his continual : 
" Don't speak like that — don't do that," invariably ac- 
companied by a freezing my dear y that went to your 
heart I 

All women are teachable. " Parvenu " is a word 
for which there is no feminine. At the expiration of 



140 



THE SA RREL- O R OA AT. 



three years you were an unimpeachable comtesse. 
The comte, who was tired to death of the museums 
and had never been able to make much of the old 
masters, now gave up entirely and brought you back 
to Paris. The shutters of the old hotel that had been 
closed so long flew back against the wall with a bang, 
and you ate your first home-coming dinner in the vast 
dining-room, seated opposite the big portrait of the 
comte's great-grandfather, who had been lieutenant- 
general of the king's armies; a stately old gentleman 
with powdered hair he was, wearing the cordon-bleu 
across his red coat, and particularly remarkable by 
reason of the immense nose that runs in the family, 
and he seemed to look down on you from his lofty 
position with somewhat of severity. 

And here, again, comtesse, solitude and melan- 
choly were your lot. What labor, and expenditure 
of money in charitable works, it cost your husband 
merely to create for you a small society of priests and 
priestesses ! How lugubrious, those black robes of 
either sex ! For the last six years you have been 
spending all your mornings in visiting schools and 
nurseries, and at night you shiver in your solitary box 
at the Frangais or the Opera. No child, and no hope 
of ever having one. The years are fleeting ! And, 
what is worst of all, your only feelings toward the 
comte are those of deep gratitude and sincere friend- 
ship, and you have your opinion concerning him. 
Oh ! a perfect gentleman in every way ; no doubt of 
that, but chokeful of stupid, aristocratic prejudices, 
and as tiresome as a concert. He is forty-eight, now, 
and quite a type of the old beau turned milksop ; 
isn't that so? a sufficiently vapid mixture of impor- 



THE BARREL-ORGAX. 



tance, dyed whiskers, prejudices, gray hats, and weak 
stomach 

Why will that pitiless organ persist in playing the 
galop that used in other days to time your entrechats 
on the back of the truffled horse ? Now you behold 
yourself again in the middle of the arena at the end 
of your " act," blowing your farewell kiss to the public 
and listening delightedly to the hailstorm of applause. 
Are you taking leave of your senses, comtesse? 
And now again you feel your heart beating, and the 
first delicious emotion of your girlhood comes back 
to you, when it seemed to you that the handsome ring- 
master in his scarlet coat had tenderly squeezed your 
finger-tips as he led you off the track ! 

The sound of the organ has died away at last ; the 
tall skeletons of the naked trees can scarcely be dis- 
cerned against the dull, dark sky that grows darker 
and duller still. The valet de chambre enters respect- 
fully, bringing in a lamp. He places it upon a stand 
and says in ceremonial tones : 

" Monsieur le cure de Saint Thomas-d'Aquin is 
awaiting Madame la Comtesse in the drawing-room." 



A Case of Conscience. 



V 

PAUL BOURGET. 



1HAD gone into the club upon leaving the opera 
and stopped in front of the baccarat table. I was 
observing matters from my perch on one of those high 
chairs that are placed there for the accommodation of 
such players as may have been unable to find room at 
the board and of simple onlookers like myself. It 
was what was called, in club parlance, a stiff game. 
The banker, a good-looking young man in evening 
dress with a gardenia in his buttonhole, had lost 
about three thousand louis, but his features, those of 
a man about town of twenty-five, were set impassibly 
to conceal all evidence of emotion. All was that the 
corner of the mouth that kept letting fall the fateful 
words : " I deal — cards — baccarat — That's a point " 
would not have chewed so fiercely the end of an un- 
lighted cigar had not the cold fever of the game 
weighed heavily on his heart. Facing him a white- 
haired individual, a professional gambler, was acting 
as croupier, and this person took no pains to conceal 
his vexation at the run of ill-luck which, at every deal, 
was reducing the dimensions of the pile of coin and 
counters before him. On the other hand the most 

H3 



A CASE OF COXSCIEXCE. 



cheerful complacency illumined the visages of the 
punters who were seated around the table as they 
deposited their stakes on the cloth and marked the 
run of the cards on bits of paper with their lead pen- 
cils, that evidence of belief in 'the efficacy of " com- 
binations " that the least superstitious cannot help 
putting their trust in as soon as they touch a card 
There can be no doubt there is some inexplicable 
attraction that exercises a most potent sway over the 
inner nature in the spectacle of every conflict, even if 
it be only a battle between a seven and eight or an 
ace and king, for there we all were, forty-nine beside 
myself, standing about those gamesters and watching 
that game, quite unconscious that the night was wan- 
ing. What philosopher is there who will explain this 
phenomenon, that every night in Paris there are so 
many people stricken with immobility after the clock 
has struck twelve, just where they happen to be, no 
matter where, anywhere except in their own homes 
where they might find rest from their labors and their 
pleasures ? Speaking for myself . I do not regret that 
I yielded that night to the deleterious delight of 
noctambulism, for if I had been virtuous and gone 
home at a respectable hour, I should not have en- 
countered my friend Fremiot, the painter, sitting all 
alone at his small table in the salon where supper is 
served and about to take a cup of bouillon, and he 
would not have offered to give me a seat in his carriage 
and set me down at my own door, and I should not 
have heard him tell a gambling story which I set down 
in black and white the very next morning as well as I 
knew how and which he has given me, also, permission 
to tell through the medium of my pen. 



A CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 



MS 



u What the devil were you doing at the club at mid- 
night and after," he asked me, " since you were not 
taking supper ? " 

" I was watching them play," I replied. " I left 
little Lautrec in a nice way. His losses were up 
among the sixty thousand " 

Just as I uttered this sentence the coupe gave a jolt. 
I had a good view of Fremiot in profile, as he was 
lighting his cigarette, with that air of his, a la Francis 
the First, — the Francis of Titian in the Louvre, — the 
beauty of which his forty-five years, good measure, 
have only served to fill out, and, as it were, solidify. 
Is it not singular enough that with his shoulders of 
a life-guardsman, his redundancy of form and that 
mask of self-indulgent, almost gluttonous, sensuality, 
this giant is yet the most delicate, the most nicely ap- 
preciative of our painters of flowers ? It is proper to 
add that^ the voice that issues from this gladiator's 
chest is most musically sweet, and his hands, — I took 
note of them afresh as they were manipulating the 
little taper and the cigarette, — are of a slenderness 
that is almost womanlike. Besides, I know by expe- 
rience that this man-at-arms is a person of exquisite 
feeling, and I was not greatly astonished by the mourn- 
ful confidence that my remarks about gambling had 
involuntarily elicited. There was abundant time, as 
it fortunately happened, for him to impart this confi- 
dence to me in all its details. As we approached the 
Seine the fog grew denser and our horses had to pro- 
ceed at a walk, while my companion abandoned him- 
self entirely to remembering, viva voce, for my benefit, 
a history that was now of very ancient date. Doubt- 
less this impression of the past, to which the artist 



146 



A CASE OF CONSCIENCE* 



was yielding, was augmented by the fantastic, shad- 
owy outlines of other coupes meeting ours in that 
nauseous fog that was almost black, and through 
which the gas-lamps cast shafts of light here and 
there, for his voice gradually fell and became very 
low and gentle, as if he were going back in spirit far, 
very far from me, who kept interrupting him from 
time to time, just sufficiently to keep his memory 
on the aiert. 

" For my part," he began, " I never played but 
once, and, if you will believe me, at this day I cannot 
even stand by and watch people playing. There. are 
times, you know, when one's nerves are not in the 
very best condition, and then, the mere sight of a 
playing-card compels me to leave the room. Ail ! 
that one single game of mine conjures up such ter- 
rible memories. ..." 

" Who is there that has not memories of that de- 
scription ? M I interrupted. "Was not I present when 
our poor friend Paul Durieu engaged in a quarrei in 
that very club that we have just left on account of a 
doubtful trick? and then came that absurd duel, and 
we buried him four days after I had shaken hands 
with him. there, right in front of that gambling-table. 
Cards always carry a bit of tragedy in their train, 
and crime, and dishonor, and suicide. Still, all that 
does not keep people from going back to them, just 
as in Spain they go back to the bull-fights, for all the 
disemboweled horses, the wounded picadors and the 
slaughtered bull." 

" That may be so," replied Frdmiot, u but no one 
ought to be the cause in his own person of one of 
those tragedies, and that is just what happened to m.e. 



A CASE OF COXSCIEXCE. 



147 



Oh ! the circumstances connected with it were quite 
simple .... but when I shall have told you them 
you will understand how it is that the most innocent 
round game causes me that same little chill of horror 
that a man who had unintentionally killed some one 
while cleaning his weapon would feel when passing a 
shooting-gallery. It was the very year that I was 
admitted as a member of the club, in 1875, and 
that was also the year of my first success at the 
Salon " 

" Your Ophelia among the Flowers ? Don't I re- 
member it ? I can see before me now the cluster of 
pink roses beside the blonde tresses, roses that were 
so delicately, tenderly pink, and then over the heart 
those black roses, as if they had been dipped in blood. 
Who owns that picture now?" 

" An American," said the painter with a sigh, " and 
he paid forty thousand francs for it, while I sold it at 
the time for fifteen hundred. Ah ! in those clays I 
was not the lucky artist of whom your alter ego Claude 
Larcher unkindly said ; i Happy Fremiot ! his occu- 
pation consists in looking all day long at a bunch of 
lilacs which brings him in ten thousand francs.' — Be- 
tween you and me he would have done as well to 
select some other person than an old friend as the 
subject of his witticisms. But if I mention money," 
he continued, touching me on the arm to keep me 
from answering him and defending my old friend 
Claude, u believe me that it is not with any idea of 
making a merit of my commercial value. No ; I only 
speak of it because those fifteen hundred francs have 
something to do with my adventure. You must con- 
sider that I had never had such a sum in my posses- 



A CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 



sion at once. Times were so hard with me at the 
beginning. I came up to Paris with a yearly allow- 
ance from my native town of a thousand francs, and 
for six years I lived on it contentedly, or nearly so." 

" But you couldn't have done it ! " I exclaimed. 

" Oh ! yes ; it was entirely possible," he replied, 
with evident pride. "A few chums and I went to 
housekeeping together. One of our number had a 
little friend who had been a cook, — pardon me, but 
it is the truth, — and she used to get us up two meals 
a day for forty-five francs a month. Room rent was 
fifteen francs. We had no servants ; I used to make 
my own bed. There you have it ; sixty francs pro- 
cured me the necessaries of life. I was togged out 
like a chimney-sweep, and I never thought of such a 
thing as taking the omnibus. My comrades lived in 
the same way, and we were not so very badly off, 
after all. There was Tardif the sculptor, Sudre the 
animal painter, Rivals the engraver, and then the one 
who was more fortunate in his belongings than any of 
us, the ' Cantinier ' of our * Cantiniere/ as we used to 
call them, Ladrat." 

" Ladrat ? Ladrat ? " said I, rummaging my memory, 
" I know that name." 

" You have seen it in the newspapers," rejoined the 
painter, upon whose countenance appeared a pained 
look ; " but I am coming to him. This Ladrat, who 
carried off all the prizes at the Art School, was even in 
those days the victim of the most horrible of vices : 
he drank. What would you have ? In the life that 
we led, almost that of laborers, where there was 
too little restraint, mingling constantly as we did with 
models and workingmen, we were exposed to many 



A CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 



149 



low temptations, and to that particular one more than 
any other. Ladrat had succumbed to it. I have to 
tell you that in order that presently you may not 
judge me too severely. It was this terrible habit, in- 
deed, that was the cause of his losing his prix de 
Rome : he got so drunk that the composition which he 
had begun with the hand of a master he finished reck- 
lessly, a la diable. In short, in 1875 he was the only, 
one of our number who had remained an inhabi- 
tant of Bohemia, and in the lowest part of Bohemia. 
He had degenerated into what we call a 6 tapeurj a 
man who goes from studio to studio, borrowing a 
hundred sous here and something more there without 
any intention of ever paying. A lifelike that often 
lasts for years." 

" Was he accustomed, at least, to express his grati- 
tude by insulting his benefactor a bit ? " I asked, u like 
a man whom I used to know and who never came to 
my room without asking me for < something for the 
little chapel K - — that was his invariable formula — and 
then insulting me by way of keeping on good terms 
with his dignity? He comes in one day and finds me 
busy correcting proof for an article that was about to 
appear. He begs. I give him something. 'Mon- 
sieur,' he says, slipping the piece of silver into his 
pocket, ' if you wish to know whether a writer has 
talent or not, all you have to do is to find out whether 
his copy is accepted at the newspaper offices. If it is 
accepted, his sentence is pronounced ; he is a man of 
mediocrity. Good-by.' There was a man for you." 

" No," said Fremiot, " that was not Ladrat's way, 
He would thank you, burst into tears, swear that he 
would go to work and then go out to the cafe 



A CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 



and get blind-drunk on absinthe. Then he would be 
ashamed and keep out of the way for some days. Be- 
sides, the loans that he asked for were always ridicu- 
lously small in amount. I was not a little astonished, 
therefore, on returning to my house one afternoon to 
find a letter from him in which he requested a loan of 
no less a sum than two hundred francs. I had not 
seen anything of him for six months, and he told me 
a long story how he had been struggling against his 
vice during those six months, that he had quit drink- 
ing, that he had tried to work, that his strength had 
given out, that his wife was ill — he was living with 
his cantiniere still ; in a word, one of those pitiful 
begging letters that it makes your heart ache to 
receive." 

"When you believe them," I insinuated, "for one 
receives so many communications of that description 
during ten years of life in Paris, and out of the whole 
lot there won't be two that have a word of truth in 
them." 

"It is better to take the chance of being duped in 
all the other cases than to allow those two to pass un- 
heeded," said the painter. " Moreover, I had no rea- 
son to question Ladrat's truthfulness at the time. It 
so happened that I had received the fifteen hundred 
francs for the Ophelia that very day. I have always 
been very exact in money matters. I was not in 
debt to the extent of a centime and I had a sum 
about equivalent to the amount requested lying in 
my drawer. My studio was equipped and my ward- 
robe supplied for several years to come. I remember 
taking mental account of my financial position as I 
was brushing my coat to go out to one of my first 



A CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 



dinners iu society, a dinner where I was received as 
something of a lion, and to which I brought the ap- 
petite of a famished man and the self-sufficiency of a 
schoolboy. Under such circumstances the genuine- 
ness of the wines and of the compliments is taken for 
granted w r ith equal confidingness. At all events, I 
compared my own situation with that of my former 
chum of the South and experienced one of those 
benevolent impulses that are as natural to youth as 
activity and good spirits ; I took ten louis and put 
them in an envelope and addressed it to Lad rat, then 
I summoned my concierge. If this man had only 
been on hand my old comrade would have had the 
money that same evening, but as it was he happened 
to be out on some errand. i It will do as well to-mor- 
row,' I said to myself, and went out, leaving the en- 
velope lying on my table in readiness for him. I was 
so firmly resolved in mind to do the action that I ex- 
perienced in advance that mean little feeling of vanity 
and self-laudation that is always inspired by the con- 
sciousness that one is doing a generous deed. It is 
not a very creditable sentiment, that vanity is not, but 
it is very human. To this vanity was presently added 
another one, and this w r as of an excessively gross de- 
scription. At the house where I dined I found myself 
seated between two very stylish women, who seemed 
to endeavor to outdo each other in the flattering at- 
tentions which they lavished on me. To make my 
story short, I left about eleven o'clock, completely 
overmastered by one of those attacks of fatuousness 
wmich make a man think that he owns the earth, and I 
brought up at our club, under the guidance of one 
of my fellow-guests who had offered me his ser- 



152 



A CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 



vices to do the honors, fori knew none of the mem- 
bers and had not set foot in the building in the six 
weeks since I had been elected a member. A couple 
of painters had put up my name, and the prospect of 
the approaching annual exposition was the only thing 
that had determined me to allow it to be voted 
on. 

" We entered the main saloon, and so unsophisticated 
was I that I had to ask my conductor the name of the 
game that had collected such a crowd of men about the 
table. He laughed, and in two words explained to me 
the rules of baccarat. * Doesn't it tempt you ? ' he 
asked. ' Why shouldn't it?' I laughingly replied, 
; but I have no money about me.' Then he explained to 
me, still laughing all the while, how I might obtain any 
sum that I desired, upon parole, up to three thousand 
francs, simply by going to the cashier and signing a 
note, with the understanding that the note was to be 
taken up within twenty-four hours. Since then I 
have learned that the young man tempted me to play 
so that he might play himself upon a beginner's luck. 
I should have been tempted without his assistance, 
however ; it was one of those moments for me when 
I might have shouted as once another man shouted to 
his boatman in the storm : 'You carry Caesar and his 
fortunes ! ' Oh ! a very small Caesar it was, and a very 
small fortune, for I seated myself at the table, saying 
to my companion : ' I am going to sign a note for five 
louis, and if I lose, I shall go home ! ' " 

" And you lost, and you remained. My pocket- 
book could tell just the same story," I replied with a 
laugh, " for I also remember making good resolutions 
like yours and then breaking thepx" 



a case of Conscience. 153 



u The matter was not so simple as that," rejoined 
Fr£miot. " My tempter, who had taken a seat beside 
me, tells me to wait until I get a hand. I obey him. 
The hand comes to me, I throw down a nine. I had 
staked my five louis. * Go paroli,' whispers my 
adviser. I follow his instructions. I throw down an 
eight. Again I double, there comes a seven, and I 
win. In a word, from nine to eight and from eight to 
seven I win six times hand-running. At the seventh 
hand, counseled by my companion still, I bet only a 
louis. I lose, but I have something like sixty louis in 
front of me. My friend, who is a winner to about the 
same extent, rises and says to me : ' If you are wise, 
you will do as I do.' But I no longer heeded what 
he told me ; I had experienced a sensation that was 
too strong to allow me to part with it thus. I am not 
what you call a great analyst, and I do not spend my 
life in taking account of my thoughts and feelings, so 
you will pardon me if I do not go into details and if I 
make use of metaphors to express what was passing 
in my mind. During the brief moments when I had 
been winning all my being had been invaded and 
possessed, as it were, by a sudden access of delirious 
pride. I was excited and raised aloft by a sort of 
exalted notion of my own peis mality. I have ex- 
perienced a similar feeling when swimming through a 
heavy sea. That vast, moving mass of water that 
threatens you, that holds you suspended on its crest, 
and that you vanquish by sheer muscular strength, 
yes, that is the exact counterpart of what play was to 
me in this first period— the period of winning — for I 
won again in the same proportions as before, and then 
still again. I laid large amounts only on my own 



154 



A CASE 6F CONSCIENCE. 



hand, and on'that of the others my stakes were insig- 
nificant, but each time that I touched the cards my 
luck was so marvelous that at first a deep silence 
prevailed about me, succeeded, when I threw down, 
by something like a thriil of admiration. If it had 
not been for that admiration, perhaps I might have 
had the courage to quit. Alas ! I have always had 
the self-esteem of Satan himself, and it has got me 
into a hundred scrapes, and will get me into many 
another before I die. I know it, I confess it, but 
there is no use talking ; when the gallery has its eyes 
on me, I can't endure to have people say : 1 He has 
backed down.' To be like that when the scene is laid 
upon the bridge of Areola is sublime, but at a baccarat 
table, while awaiting the turn of a card, it is idiotic, 
and yet it was owing to nothing in the world but that 
childish vanity that, after having cut such a dash with 
my good luck, I was unwilling to submit to the bad 
when I saw it coming my way. For I did see it ; 
there came a moment when I understood that I was 
going to lose, and the sort of clear-sightedness of 
victory that had made me take up my cards with 
absolute confidence all at once grew dim. It was 
written that in the course of one- sitting I was to be- 
come acquainted with all the emotions that gambling 
affords its devotees, for after having known the in- 
toxicating delight of winning I had the cold, cutting 
intoxication of losing. Ah* ! it is all the same. You 
know the celebrated mot : * At cards, after the pleasure 
of winning comes the pleasure of losing.' I know of 
no other expression that so well depicts that morbid 
eagerness, that mixture of hope and despair, of cool 
calculation and rash daring. We look to vanquish 



A CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 



*55 



adverse fortune and are certain of ourselves being 
vanquished. Our reasoning faculties desert us and 
we play a game that we know to be absurd. And the 
chips disappear ; first the white, then the red, then the 
blue, and we put our name to more notes. 

" After having had the self-control for ten long years 
to think twice before spending thirty-five sous for cab- 
hire, as I had done, we make bets of five hundred 
francs without hesitating. But I will sum up the 
situation for you in very few words : I had entered 
the club at eleven o'clock ; when I turned the key in 
my door at two I had lost and owed the whole sum of 
three thousand francs that I had obtained upon my 
credit, and, as I told you, it was nearly all that 1 
possessed in the world." 

"Well, well [" said I, "if you did not become a 
confirmed gambler after such a shaking up as that, it 
was because you hadn't it in you. It was enough to 
ruin a man forever." 

"You are right," rejoined Frdmiot, " when I awoke 
the following morning after the lethargic slumber that 
always succeeds such sensations, the scene of the pre- 
ceding night arose before my mind in its entirety and 
I had but two ideas in my head : to secure my revenge 
that same evening and to utilize the experience that 
I had acquired in the combination of my bets. I 
mentally reviewed certain deals, where I had lost and 
where I should have won. All at once my eyes fell 
on the envelope that was lying on the table addressed 
to Ladrat. An involuntary calculation passed through 
my head which made it clear to me that the gift of 
that money would be a foolish sacrifice. After paying 
the three thousand francs that I owed I would have 



iS 6 A CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 

scarcely anything left. To get together a stake suffi- 
cient to allow me to return to the place that evening, 
and I felt that / could not avoid returning, I should 
have to borrow from the picture-dealer ; sell some of 
my studies for what they would bring. I could scrape 
together fifty louis in this way, and out of those fifty 
louis I was going to divert ten for that drone, that 
sot, that liar !— for I wished to prove to myself that 
his letter was nothing more than a tissue of falsehoods ; 
I took it up and reread it. Ah ! its accents again 
penetrated my heart. But no ; I would not listen to 
that voice, and I jumped hurriedly from my bed to 
write a note of refusal—and I made it curt and cold, 
so that the breach between my old comrade and mv 
pity might be irreparable. Once the note was dis- 
patched I experienced a feeling of shame and remorse, 
but I stifled it as well as I could among the occupa- 
tions that the day had in store for me. ' Besides/ I 
said to myself, by way of quieting my conscience, ' if 
I win there will be plenty of time to send Ladrat the 
money to-morrow— and win I shall.* " 

" And you won ? " I said to him as he ceased. 

" Yes," he replied, in a voice that was quite unlike 
his own ; "but the next day it was too late. Immedi- 
ately upon receiving my note Ladrat, who had not 
been lying to me, was doubtless seized with the mad- 
ness of despair. He and his companion formed the 
fatal resolution of suffocating themselves. They were 
found dead in their bed ; and it was I — do you under- 
stand, I, — who gave the order to break down the door. 
I had come there with the two hundred francs. Yes, 
it was too late. That is how it is that you remember 
having read tha* name of Ladrat in the newspapers. 



A CASt OP CONSCIENCE. 



Now can you understand why it is that the mere sight 
of a card is horrible to me ?" 

" Nonsense,'' said I, " if you had sent him the money 
the night before it might have saved him for a month 
or two, but he would have relapsed, his vice would 
have reconquered him, and his end would have been 
the same." 

" That may be true,'' replied the painter, " but one 
ought never to be that last jdrop of water that causes 
the vase to overflow/ 1 



Who Can Tell ? 

^— . 

GUY DE MAUPASSANT. 

i 

MY God! My God! At last, then, I am to com- 
mit to paper that which happened me. But can 
I do it? Shall I dare do it? It is all so strange, so 
inexplicable, so incomprehensible, so maddening! 

Were I not assured of what my eyes beheld ; were I 
not certain that there was nothing defective in my 
reasoning, that there was no error in my observation, 
no link missing in the chain of rigorous verification, 
I should set myself down as a mere bedlamite, the 
sport of a fantastic vision. After all, who can tell? 

I am to-day the inmate of an asylum for lunatics, 
but I took up my abode there voluntarily, from cau- 
tion, from fear! Only one living soul is acquainted 
with my story. The physician here. I am going to 
write it down. Why? I do not clearly know. To 
rid myself of it, for I feel it within me like an intol- 
erable nightmare. 
It is this: 

I have always been a recluse, a dreamer, a sort of 
lonely, kindly disposed philosopher, content with 
little, without bitterness toward man and without hate 

159 



WHO CAN TELLt 



toward Heaven. I have always lived alone by reason 
of a sort of incommodity that the presence of other? 
affects me with. How shall I explain that? I can- 
not. I do not shut myself entirely from the world, 1 
do not refuse to converse and dine with my friends, 
but when I have had them by me for any length of 
time, even the nearest and dearest of them, they tire 
me, they weary and depress me, and I experience a 
constantly increasing, tormenting desire to see them go 
away, or to go away myself and be alone. 

This desire is something more than a mere fancy; it 
is an irresistible necessity. And should the people 
with whom I chance to be continue to remain with me, 
should I be compelled, not to listen and attend to, but 
to hear their conversation for a long time, some acci- 
dent would doubtless happen me. Of what nature? 
Ah! who can tell? Perhaps a simple fainting-fit? 
Yes, probably. 

I love so to be alone that I cannot even endure the 
propinquity of other beings sleeping beneath my roof; 
I cannot live in Paris because it is infinite torture to 
me. I die a moral death, and am racked, too, in 
body and nerves, by that immense throng that swarms 
and lives about me, even while it sleeps. Ah! the 
slumber of others is even more afflictive to me than 
their speech, and I can never rest when I know, when 
I feel that, parted from me by a wall, there are lives 
whose thread is broken by these regular eclipses of the 
reason. 

Why am I thus? Who can tell? The reason, per- 
haps, is very simple : I weary very quickly of every- 
thing that occurs outside my own individuality. And 
there are many people constituted as I am. 



WHO CAN TELL? 



161 



There are two races of us here on earth. There are 
those who feel the need of their fellow-men, who find 
the company of others a distraction and a peaceful, 
soothing influence, and are exasperated, exhausted, 
crushed by solitude as they would be by ascending a 
terrible glacier or crossing a desert ; and again there 
are those whom the companionship of others serves to 
weary, nauseate, incommode and tire to death, while 
isolation tends to calm and refresh them, and bathe 
them in repose, in the independence and the dreamland 
of their fancy. 

In a word, there is a normal psychical phenomenon 
in it. Some are formed to live the outer life, others 
to live the inner life. For myself, my interest in ex- 
ternal objects is shortlived and soon exhausted, and 
the moment that it reaches its limits I am conscious of 
an intolerable wretchedness in all my being, physical 
and mental. 

From this it has resulted that I am deeply attached, 
that I was deeply attached, to inanimate objects that 
assume in my eyes the importance of living beings, 
and that my house is, or was, a world where I lived 
an active and solitary life in the midst of objects, fur- 
niture, familiar bibelots, that were as sympathetic to my 
eyes as human countenances. I had filled the house 
with those things little by little, and had made it beau- 
tiful, and within its walls I experienced content and 
satisfaction; I was very happy, as one is in the 
arms of a loving woman whose accustomed caress 
has become a calm and gentle portion of our 
existence. 

I had built this house in a handsome garden which 
secluded it from the public roads, and close to the gate 



162 



IV HO CAN TELL f 



of a city where, when I felt like it, I might have the 
resource of society, for which I felt at times an inclina- 
tion. My servants all had quarters in a remote build- 
ing at the bottom of the kitchen-garden, which was 
surrounded by a high wall. The silence of my dwell- 
ing that was lost, hidden, drowned beneath the leaves 
of the great trees, wrapped in the obscurity of the 
night, was so restful and so grateful to me that every 
night I would put off going to bed for several hours in 
order that I might have the longer time to enjoy it. 

There had been a performance of Sigurd at the 
opera house in the city that evening. It was the first time 
that I had heard that fine and imaginative drama and 
it had afforded me keen delight. 

I was returning on foot at a lively pace, and sound- 
ing phrases were ringing in my ears and graceful 
visions were floating before my eyes. It w r as dark, 
very dark, so dark that I could scarcely distinguish the 
road before me, and several times I was near tumbling 
into the ditch. From the octroi at the gate to my 
house it is about a half-mile, perhaps a little more, 
say twenty minutes of easy walking. It was one 
o'clock in the morning, one o'clock or half-past one; 
the sky brightened a little ahead of me and the crescent 
appeared — the cheerless crescent of the moon's last 
quarter, The crescent of the first quarter, that which 
rises at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, is bright, 
cheerful, touched with silver, but that which rises after 
midnight is red, sullen, disheartening ; it is the verita- 
ble crescent of the Sabbat. Every night-walker must 
have remarked this. The former, even if it is no 
thicker than a thread, casts a joyous little light thai 
makes glad the heart and projects clearly drawn shad* 



WHO CAN TELL? 



ows upon the earth; the latter sheds a scanty, expiring 
light, so dull that it scarcely makes a shadow. 

I perceived in the distance the dark mass of my gar- 
den, and I know not whence arose the feeling of dis- 
quiet that I experienced at the idea of entering it. I 
proceeded at a slower pace. The night was very 
balmy. The great group of trees seemed to me like a 
necropolis in which my house lay buried. 

I opened my gate and entered the long alley of syca- 
mores that stretched away toward the building, arching 
the road like a lofty tunnel; I threaded the dense, 
opaque masses, of shrubbery and skirted the lawn 
where, in the wan darkness, the flower-beds lay in oval 
splashes of indistinct color. 

As I drew near the house a strange disturbance took 
possession of my mind. I stopped. There was noth- 
ing to be heard. There was not a breath of air to 
move the leaves. "What ails me?" I thought. For 
ten years I had been coming home in this way, and 
never until now had I known the slightest uneasiness. 
I was not afraid. I have never been afraid at night. 
The sight of a man, a depredator, a robber, would 
have excited my wrath, and I should not have hesi- 
tated to try conclusions with him. Besides, I was 
armed. I had my revolver with me. I did not lay 
hand on it, however, for I wished to resist that influ- 
ence of dread that was gathering within me. 

What was it? A presentiment? The mysterious 
presentiment that takes possession of the minds of men 
when they behold the approach of the unfathomable? 
Perhaps so. Who can tell? 

I felt my flesh creep as I went forward, and when at 
last X stood in front of my big house with its tightly 



1 64 



WHO CAN TELL? 



closed shutters, I was sensible that I should have to 
wait a few minutes before opening the door and effect- 
ing an entrance. I therefore seated myself upon a 
bench, before the windows of my salon. I remained 
there, slightly trembling, my head resting against the 
wall, my gaze fixed upon the shadowy foliage. I 
noticed nothing unusual about me during those first 
instants. I had something of a roaring in my ears, 
but that is a frequent occurrence with me. At times 
it seems to me that I hear the passing of trains, the 
ringing of bells, the marching of an army. 

Then this roaring soon became more distinct, more 
clearly defined, more unambiguous. I had deceived 
myself. It was not the normal beating of my pulses 
that had caused those noises in my ears, but a nonde- 
script, and, at the same time, very confused sound, 
which emanated, beyond the possibility of a doubt, 
from the interior of my house. 

I could distinguish it through the wail, this continu- 
ous, uninterrupted noise; a tremor, it was, rather 
than a noise, an aimless moving about of many ob- 
jects, as if all my furniture, my chairs and tables, had 
been shaken and moved from their places, and dragged 
gently to and fro. 

Oh! I questioned, for quite a length of time, the 
reliability of my sense of hearing, but having placed 
my ear against the shutter in order to gain a clearer 
knowledge of this strange disorder in my dwelling. I 
was convinced beyond room for doubt that some- 
thing unnatural and incomprehensible was going on 
within. I was not afraid, but I was — how shall I 
express my meaning? I was struck dumb with 
astonishment. I did not draw my revolver— for I 



WHO CAN TELL? 



knew very well that I should have no occasion to use 
it. I waited. 

For a long time I waited, unable to decide upon 
what to do, my mind perfectly clear, but wildly appre- 
hensive. I waited, standing erect, all the while listen- 
ing intently to the noise that kept increasing, assuming 
at times a character of intense violence and rising, seem- 
ingly, into a roar of impatience, rage, and mysterious 
riot. 

Then, ashamed of my cowardice, I seized my bunch 
of keys, selected the one that I required and inserted 
it in the lock. I gave it two turns and pushing the 
door with all my strength, I sent it flying back against 
the wainscot. The crash sounded like the report of a 
musket, and lol straightway, from top to bottom of 
my house, responsive to the explosive sound, there 
arose a fearful din. It was so unexpected, so terrible, 
so deafening, that I recoiled a few steps and, though 
well aware how futile was the proceeding, drew my 
revolver from its case. 

I waited again. Oh ! only for a short time, though. 
I could distinguish now an outlandish trampling on the 
steps of my staircase, on the wooden floors, on the car- 
pets — a trampling not of shoes and of foot-coverings 
such as are worn by human beings, but of crutches, 
crutches of wood and crutches of iron, which rang 
with a noise such as is made by the beating of cym- 
bals. And behold! there upon the threshold of my 
door I suddenly perceived a fauteuil, my great read- 
ing-chair, go waddling out of the house. It made 
off through the garden. Others followed suit, those of 
my drawing-room first, then the low sofas, dragging 
themselves along like crocodiles on their short legs, 



i66 



WHO CAN TELL? 



then all the rest of my chairs, bounding and kaping 
like goats, and the little footstools, which trotted off 
like rabbits. 

Oh, what .an experience! I slipped into a clump 
of bushes, where I crouched down and remained watch- 
ing this migration of my goods and chattels, for they 
all cleared out, every one of them, one after the other, 
moving at a slow or rapid pace according to their 
size and weight. My piano, my grand piano a queue, 
went by galloping like a runaway horse, with a faint 
murmur of music proceeding from its depths, and the 
smaller objects — brushes, glasses, cups — glided over 
the sand like ants, and the moon touched them with 
phosphorescent lights so that they shone like glow- 
worms. The stuffs of silk and woolen crawled, spread 
themselves out in sheets after the fashion of monsters 
of the sea, octopi and devil-fish. I beheld my desk 
approaching, a rare bibelot of the last century, con- 
taining all the letters that I ever received, all my heart 
history — an old history that has been cause to me of so 
much suffering! And in it, too, were photographs. 

Suddenly I ceased to be afraid. I rushed upon the 
desk and seized it, as we seize a robber, as we seize a 
woman who is trying to escape us, but it pursued its 
way with irresistible momentum, and despite my 
efforts, and despite my wrath, I could not even so 
much as retard its progress. As I was pulling back- 
ward like a madman in resistance to this appalling 
force, I fell to the ground in my conflict with it; then 
it rolled me over and over, dragged me upon the sandy 
path, and the pieces of furniture that were following 
in its train were already begininng to tread upon me, 
trampling on my legs and bruising them; then, when I 



WHO CAN TELL? 



167 



had let go my hold of it, the others passed over my 
body, just as a charge of cavalry passes over a trooper 
who has lost his saddle. 

Maddened with affright, at last I succeeded in drag- 
ging myself out of the main alley and concealing my- 
self again among the trees, from thence to watch the 
flight of the most unconsidered, the smallest, the 
most trifling objects, those the very existence of 
which I had been unaware of, which had been 
mine. 

Then in the distance, in my dwelling, that now had 
the resonancy of other empty houses, I heard a direful 
sound of closing doors. Downward and from top to 
bottom of the house they kept slamming, until the door 
of the vestibule, that I myself, idiot that I was, had 
opened for this flitting, had swung closed, the last of 
all. 

I immediately fled, running toward the city, and 
only when in its streets, where I met belated wayfarers, 
did I regain my self-command. I went to a hotel 
where I was known and rang the bell. I had beaten 
my clothing with my hands in order to remove from it 
the traces of dust, and I told them that I had lost my 
bunch of keys, among which was that of the garden 
where my servants were sleeping in an isolated house, 
behind the inclosing wall that served to protect my 
fruits and vegetables from the visit of the spoiler. 

I buried myself up to the eyes in the bed which they 
gave me, but I could not sleep and passed the time 
until daybreak listening to the thumping of my heart. 
I had given orders that my household should be ap- 
prised of my presence there at earliest dawn, and at 
.seven o'clock in the morning my valet«de«chambre 



i68 



WHO CAN TELL? 



knocked at my door. His face bore an aspect of 

consternation. 

"A great misfortune happened last night, sir," said 
he. 

1 4 What was it?" 

"All monsieur's furniture was stolen — all, every- 
thing, even to the smallest objects." 

The intelligence gave me pleasure. Why? Who 
can tell? It rendered me master of myself and my 
actions, it gave me an opportunity to dissemble, to 
say nothing to any one of what my eyes had seen, to 
conceal it, to bury it at the bottom of my conscious- 
ness like a dread secret. I made answer: 

4 'Then those must be the same parties who stole my 
keys from me. The police must be notified at once. 
I will get up and be with you in a few moments." 

The investigation lasted five months. No discovery 
was made ; no trace of the robbers was found, nor 
was the least bit of my furniture recovered. Parbleu! 
If I had told what I knew — if I had told — they would 
have locked me up, me — not the thieves, but the man 
who had been capable of seeing such things. 

Oh! I knew enough to hold my tongue. I did not 
refurnish my house, however. There would have been 
no use in doing that; the same thing would have hap- 
pened again. I did not wish to return to it. I did 
not return to it. I never set eyes on it again. 

I came and lived at Paris, at the hotel, and I con- 
sulted physicians upon my nervous condition, which 
had been the cause of much anxiety to me since that 
ill-omened night. They urged me to travel I fol- 
lowed their advice, 



WHO CAN TELL? 



169 



II 

I commenced by a trip to Italy. The sunlight 
was beneficial to me. I spent six months in wan- 
dering from Genoa to Venice, from Venice to Flor- 
ence, from Florence to Rome, from Rome to Naples. 
Then I made a tour through Sicily, an interesting 
country to visit on account of its natural advantages 
and its monuments, relics of the Greeks and Normans. 
I passed over into Africa, I traversed unmolested 
that peaceful, yellow desert that is trod by camels, 
gazelles and vagabond Arabs, where the light, trans- 
parent atmosphere harbors no haunting visions, by 
night more than by day. 

I re-entered France by way of Marseilles, and not- 
withstanding the gayety of the Provengals, the paler 
light of their country afflicted me with sadness. In 
returning to the continent I experienced the strange 
sensation of a sick man who believes that he is cured 
and who is warned by a dull pain that the embers of his 
disease are still alive. 

Then I returned to Paris. I grew tired of life there 
at the expiration of a month. This was in the autumn, 
and I felt a desire to make a trip through Normandy 
before the setting in of winter, a country that I was 
unacquainted with. 

I took Rouen as my starting-point, as a matter of 
course, and for a week I wandered in a state of dis- 
stracted, delighted enthusiasm about the streets of this 
middle-age city, this surprising museum of wonderful 
Gothic monuments. 

Now, as I was picking my way one afternoon, about 



170 



WHO CAN TELL? 



four o'clock, along an outlandish street through which 
flows an ink-black stream that they call the "Eau de 
Robec, " my attention, which had been devoted to the 
fantastic and antiquated aspect of the houses, was sud- 
denly attracted by the sight of a row of second-hand 
dealers' shops that adjoined each other, door by door. 

Ah! they had made good choice of their location, 
those sordid traffickers in the frippery of the past, in 
that quaint, narrow street, over that repulsive water- 
course, beneath those peaked roofs of tile or slate on 
which the old-fashioned weathercocks were still creak- 
ing as they turned with the wind! 

Heaped confusedly together in the depths of the 
dark shops could be seen carved chests, pottery of 
Rouen, of Nevers, of Moustiers, painted statues and 
others of oak, images of Christ, of the Virgin and of 
the saints, ecclesiastical ornaments, chasubles, copes, 
even sacred vases and an old tabernacle of gilded wood 
that had ceased to be a residence of the Divinity. 
Oh! those strange caverns in those lofty houses, in 
those wide, deep houses that were filled, from garret 
to cellar, with objects of every description that seemed 
to have outlived their usefulness, that had survived 
their natural owners, their age, their time, their cus- 
toms, to be purchased as curiosities by new genera- 
tions ! 

My old passion for bric-a-brac came to life again in 
this antiquarian region. I went from shop to shop, 
crossing in a couple of strides the bridges of four rot- 
ting planks that spanned the unsavory current of the 
Eau de Robec. 

Misericorde! How it upset me! At the edge of a 
vault that was stuffed full with all sorts of things, and 



WHO CAN 7^ ELL ? 



in 



that seemed to be the entrance to the catacombs of a 
graveyard of old furniture, one of my finest armoires 
greeted my eyes. I approached it trembling in every 
limb, trembling to such a degree that I dared not touch 
it. I put forth my hand to touch it; I hesitated and 
drew it back. And yet there could be no doubt of its 
identity; a unique armoire of the time of Louis XIII., 
that any one who had seen it but once would recog- 
nize without difficulty. Suddenly casting my eyes a 
little further, toward the more dimly lighted depths of 
this gallery, they lighted on three of my fauteuils cov- 
ered with fine-stitch tapestry, then, further still, I per- 
ceived my two Henri II. tables, such rarities that peo- 
ple used to come from Paris merely for a look at them. 

Think ! just think what my feelings must have been ! 

And I advanced, paralyzed, in a fever of emotion; 
still, I advanced — for I am a brave man — I advanced as 
a knight of the dark ages might have penetrated a lair 
of necromancers. As I proceeded I found everything 
that had belonged to me, my chandeliers, my books, 
my pictures, my stuffs of silk and woolen, my arms, 
everything, excepting the desk that contained my let- 
ters, and of that I could see nothing anywhere. 

I kept on and on, descending into dark galleries only 
to climb out of them again immediately and mount to 
floors above. I was alone. I called; no one responded. 
I was alone; there was not a soul in that great house 
with its labyrinthine passages. 

Night came on, and I had to sit down, in the dark- 
ness, on one of my own chairs, for I would not go 
away. Every now and then I shouted: "Halloa! 
halloa! some one !" 

I had been there, certainly, more than an hour, 



172 



WHO CAN TELL? 



when I heard footsteps, soft, slow footsteps, I could' 
not tell where. I came near taking to my heels, but 
plucking up ray courage I called again and saw a light 
in the adjacent apartment. 

"Who is there?" a voice said. 

"A purchaser!" I replied. 

The answer came: "It is very late to enter a shop 
in this manner." 

I answered: "I have been waiting for you for more 
than an hour." 

"You can come again to-morrow." 

"To-morrow I shall have left Rouen." 

I dared not go forward, and he did not come to me. 
I could still see the light of his lamp, shining on a 
tapestry where two angels were represented hovering 
over the dead of a field of battle. It, also, was my 
property. I said: ¥ 

"Well! Are you coming?" 

"I await you here," he replied. 

I arose and went .toward him. 

In the middle of a great room was a little bit of a 
man, very little and very fat, phenomenonally fat, a 
most repulsive sight to see. 

He had a thin beard, composed of straggling, yellow- 
ish hairs of unequal length, and not the sign of a hair 
on his head! Not a hair! As he held his candle up 
at arm's length to get a better view of me, his cranium 
appeared to me like a small moon in that immense 
room crowded with old furniture. His face was 
wrinkled and swollen, and the eyes were imperceptible. 

I made a bargain with him for three chairs which 
were my property, and paid a large sum for them, 
money down, merely giving him the number of my 



WHO CAN TELL? 



173 



room at the hotel. They were to be delivered the 
following day before nine o'clock. 

Then I took my departure. He escorted me to his 
door with a great show of politeness. 

After that I called upon the comniissaire cenii'al of the 
police of the city, to whom I related the story of the 
theft of my furniture and the discovery that I had just 
made. He immediately telegraphed the public prose- 
cutor who had conducted the investigation of the rob- 
bery for full particulars, requesting me to await the 
answer. In an hour's time it came and was satisfac- 
tory to me in every respect. 

"I am going to have this man arrested and examine 
him at once," he said to me, "for he may suspect 
something and take steps to get rid of your property. 
You had better go and get your dinner and come back 
here in two hours; I will have him here and will 
put him through another examination in your 
presence." 

"I shall be glad to do so, sir, and I thank you with 
all my heart. " 

I went to my hotel and dined, and ate with a better 
appetite than I could have believed possible. I was 
well pleased with the turn affairs had taken. He was 
in custody. 

Two hours later I returned to the police official, 
who was waiting for me. 

"Well, sir," he said, as he caught sight of me, "we 
have not succeeded in finding your man. My men 
have not been able to lay hands on him." 

Ah! I experienced a sickening feeling. 

"But — you found his house, did you not?" I in- 
quired. 



174 



WHO CAX TElL? 



"Certainly. We shall put a guard over it and keep 
a sharp lookout until he comes back. As to the man, 
he has disappeared. " 

"Disappeared?" 

"Disappeared. He generally passes his evenings 
with his neighbor, the widow Bidoin, who is also a 
second-hand dealer and a good-for-nothing fortune- 
teller. She has not seen him this evening and can 
give us no intelligence of him. We shall have to wait 
until to-morrow." 

I went away. Ah! how sinister, how haunted and 
dread-inspiring the streets of Rouen appeared to me 
that night ! 

I slept so badly, awakening in a nightmare from 
every one of my short naps. 

As I did not wish to appear unduly anxious or im- 
patient, I waited the next morning until it was ten 
o'clock before going to the police-station. 

Nothing more had been seen of the merchant. His 
shop remained closed. 

The commissaire said to me : 

"I have taken all the necessary steps. The public 
prosecutor has been fully apprised of the circumstances 
of the case; we will go together to that shop and have 
it opened, and you will point out to me your prop- 
erty." 

A coup6 conveyed us thither. There were police- 
men, together with a locksmith, standing in front of 
the shop-door, which was quickly opened. 

When we had effected an entrance I could see 
nothing of my armoire, my fauteuils, my tables; noth- 
ing, not a thing of the furniture that had been in my 
house, absolutely nothing, while the night before I 



WHO CAN TELL? 



could not take a step without encountering some arti- 
cle that had been mine. 

The commissaire, in his bewilderment, at first 
looked at me distrustfully. 

"Mon Dieu, monsieur," I said, "the disappearance 
of that furniture and that of the merchant form a 
strange coincidence. ' ' 

He smiled. "It is true. You made a mistake in 
buying and paying for your bibelots yesterday. It 
put him on his guard.' ' 

I replied: "What I cannot see through is, how it is 
that the space that was occupied by my furniture is 
now filled with other chattels." 

"Oh!" the commissaire answered, "he had all the 
night to work in, and accomplices, no doubt. There 
must be a communication between this house and the 
adjoining ones. Never fear, sir; I am going to follow 
this matter up closely. The scamp can't escape us for 
long, since we have a watch at the entrance of his 
den." 

Ah! my heart, my heart, my poor heart; how it 
beat and throbbed ! 

I remained at Rouen fifteen days. The man did 
not return. Parbleu ! parbleu! A man like that, who 
could have expected to capture him, or do aught to 
interfere with his plans? 

Now, on the sixteenth day, in the morning, I re- 
ceived this strange letter from my gardener, whom I 
had made the guardian of my pillaged and empty 
house : 



176 



WHO CAN TELL? 



Monsieur : 

I have the honor of informing Monsieur that something hap- 
pened last night that no one can understand, the police no more 
than the rest of us. All the furniture was returned, all, without 
exception, everything, even to the smallest article. The house is 
now exactly as it was the day before the robbery. It is enough 
to drive one wild. It occurred during the night between Fiiday 
and Saturday. The roads are cut up as if everything had been 
dragged from the gate to the door. It was the same on the day 
of the disappearance. 

We await the arrival of Monsieur, of whom I am the very hum- 
ble servant. 

Philippe Raudin. 

Oh! no, oh! no, oh! no. I will not go back there! 
I took the letter to the commissaire of Rouen. 

"It is a very adroit restitution," said he. "We 
must dissemble and lay low. We will pinch the man 

one of these days!" 

But he has not been pinched. No. They have not 
pinched him, and I am afraid of him, now, as if he 
were a wild beast let loose at my heels. 

Undiscoverable! he is undiscoverable, this mon- 
ster with a skull like a full moon! He will never be 
caught. He will never return to his home. What 
matters it to him. I am the only cne that he fears to 
meet, and I won't do it. 

I won't! I won't! I won't! 

And if he does return, if he takes possession of his 
shop again, who is there that can prove that he had my 
furniture there? My testimony is all there is against 
him, and I feel that it is beginning to be discredited. 

Ah ! but no ! it was no longer possible to lead such 
a life. And then I could not keep the secret of what 



WHO CAN TELF? 



177 



I had seen. I could not keep on living like the rest 
of the world with the dread that such things might 
happen me again. 

I came and found the doctor who has charge of this 
asylum and told him everything. 

After he had examined me at great length, he said: 

"Would you agree to remain here for some time, 
monsieur?" 

"Very gladly, monsieur." 

"You have means of your own?" 

"Yes, monsieur." 

"Do you wish a pavilion to yourself? 1 ' 
. "Yes, monsieur." 

"Shall you wish to see friends?" 

"No, monsieur; no, not a soul. The man of 
Rouen, in his desire for vengeance, might make bold 
to come and pursue me here." 

And so I am here alone, all alone, for three months, 
now. My mind is at ease, nearly. I fear but one 
thing: If the antiquary should become crazy — and if 

they should bring him to this asylum The very 

prisoners themselves are not secure 



The Drowned Man. 



GUY DE MAUPASSANT 



i 



VERY one in Fecamp was acquainted with the 



JL/ story of Mother Patin. There could be no doubt 
that Mother Patin had not had a happy life of it with 
her man," for during his lifetime her man had used to 
thrash her as they thrash the wheat on the barn-floor. 

He was captain of a fishing-boat, and had married 
her, long ago, although she was poor, for her good 
looks. 

Patin, a good sailor, but very much of a brute, was 
a frequenter of Father Auban's pothouse, where, on 
ordinary days, he would drink four or five small 
glasses of tanglefoot, and on days when the luck was 
good out at sea eight or ten, and even more, accord- 
ing to his gayety of heart, as he used to say. 

The tanglefoot was served to the customers by 
Father Auban's daughter, a comely brunette of pleas- 
ing aspect, who attracted custom to the house by dint 
of her good looks alone, for she had never been the 
subject of scandal. 

At the commencement of Patirrs visits to the pot- 




i So 



THE DROWNED MAN. 



house he would be content to gaze upon her, and his 
remarks to her would be simply such as were de- 
manded by common politeness, the reasonable remarks 
of a modest young man. When he had taken his first 
glass of tanglefoot he began to discover that she was 
handsomer than before ; at the second he would make 
eyes at her; at the third he would say: "If you were- 

only so minded, Mam'zelle Desiree " without ever 

concluding his sentence ; at the fourth he would be 
pulling her by her petticoats and trying to kiss her; 
and when he reached his tenth, then it was Father 
Auban who waited on the customers. 

The old wineseller, who was up to all the tricks of 
his trade, used to send Desiree around among the 
tables to keep the drinking up to a satisfactory pitch, 
and Desiree, who was Father Au ban's own worthy 
daughter, would whisk her petticoats to and fro among 
the drinkers and exchange pleasantries with them, a 
smile on her lips and malice in her eye. 

Through drinking many glasses of tanglefoot Desi- 
ree's image became so deeply imprinted on Patin's 
heart that he was thinking of her constantly, even 
while he was out at sea, while he was casting his nets 
into the water, away out on the broad ocean, on the 
nights when the wind blew and the nights when it 
was calm, on the nights when the moon shone and the 
nights when it was dark. He thought of her as he 
held the tiller in the stern of his boat, while his four 
shipmates were slumbering with their heads pillowed 
on their arms. He always beheld her smiling on him, 
raising her shoulder to pour out the yellow brandy, 
and then going away, saying: 

"There! Are you satisfied?" 



THE DROWNED MAN. 



181 



And so, by reason of thus keeping her before his 
eyes and in his mind, he became possessed of such an 
inordinate desire of having her to wife that he asked 
her hand in marriage. 

He was well to do, owning his vessel, his nets, and 
a house on the Retenue down by the end of the beach, 
w r hile Father Auban had nothing. He was conse- 
quently accepted with avidity, and the wedding was 
celebrated at the earliest moment possible, both sides, 
iox, different reasons of their own, being desirous to 
have the matter over and ended. 

When he had been married three days, however, 
Patin did not understand at all how he could ever have 
believed that Desiree was different from other women. 
True as gospel, he must have been a blockhead to 
saddle himself with a woman as poor as a church 
mouse, who had bewitched him with her brandy, that 
was as plain as a pikestaff, with brandy ii which she 
had put some unclean nostrum to addle his brain. 
And he swore, and he swore, at all times of the tide, 
and he smashed his pipe between his teeth, and he blew 
up his crew; and when he had ripped and stormed, up 
hill and down, with all the hard words in the dic- 
tionary and against everything that he could think of, 
he would expectorate what bile was left in his stomach 
upon the fishes and the lobsters as he took them from 
the nets, one by one, and never consigned them to the 
hampers without a running accompaniment of insult 
and unseemly language. 

Then when he got home, where his wife, old 
Auban 's daughter, was at the mercy of his tongue and 
fist, it was not long before he began to treat her as the 
lowest of the low. Then, as she endured it all with 



182 



THE DRO IVXED MAX. 



resignation, accustomed as she had been to the out- 
bursts of the paternal abode, her calmness only exas- 
perated him the more, and one night he gave her a 
thumping. After that life became a terrible affair in 
his house. 

For ten years all the talk on the Retenue was of the 
kicks and cuffs that Patin gave his wife, and how he 
never spoke to her without swearing at her, with or 
without occasion. He had, in truth, a way of swear- 
ing that was all his own, a redundancy of idiom anfl a 
stentorian lung power such as were possessed by no 
other man in Fecamp. The moment that his boat 
was sighted off the entrance of the harbor, returning 
from the fishing-ground, folks waited to hear the first 
volley that he would let fly from his deck upon the 
wharf so soon as he should catch the first glimpse of 
his helpmate's white cap. 

On days when there was a heavy sea on he would 
be standing at the stern managing his vessel, one eye 
on the bow and one on the canvas, and notwithstand- 
ing the care that was necessitated by the narrow and 
difficult passage, notwithstanding the great waves that 
came rolling into the contracted channel, mountain- 
high, he would manage to keep an eye on the women 
who stood there, drenched by the spray of the break- 
ing waves, waiting for their sailor lads, so that he 
might recognize his own wife, old Auban's daughter, 
the good-for-nothing huzzy ! 

Then, as soon as he set eyes on her, unmindful of 
the roaring of the wind and waves, he would salute 
her with a deafening bellow of abuse, which detonated 
from his gullet with such explosive violence that every 
one laughed, though they all felt much compassion for 



THE DROWNED MAX. 183 

her. When the boat had got up to the wharf, too,, he 
had a way of discharging his ballast of politeness, to 
make use of his own expression, while at the same time 
discharging his load of fish, that attracted about his 
fasts all the blackguards and all the idlers of the har- 
bor. 

These things would pour from his mouth, at one 
time terrific and of short duration, like the report of a 
cannon, and again reverberating like thunder-claps, 
which for five minutes at a time would keep up such a 
rolling fire of bad language that it seemed as if all the 
tempests of the Everlasting Father must have their 
home within his breast. 

When, after this performance, he had left his vessel 
and was face to face with her amid the throng of gap- 
ing idlers and fishwives, he would summon up from 
the mysterious recesses of his memory an entirely 
fresh assortment of outrages and insults, and in this 
way would conduct her home to their dwelling, she 
preceding, he following, she weeping, he shouting at 
the top of his voice. 

Then, when the doors were closed and they were 
alone together, he would beat her upon the most 
trifling pretext. Anything sufficed him for an excuse 
for raising his hand to her, and when he had once be- 
gun he never stopped, brutally casting in her face at 
such times the true reasons of his hatred. At every 
slap, at every cuff he would roar: "Ah! you beggar, 
you ! You scarecrow, you starveling! A pretty stroke 
of business I made of it the day when I washed my 
mouth with the vile stuff of that rascally old father of 
yours ! " 

She was living, now, poor woman, in a never-ceasing 



THE DROWNED MAN. 



state of terror, in a continuous tremor of body and of 
mind, in the despairing expectation of indignities and 
blows. 

And that went on for ten years. She was so en- 
tirely cowed that she never spoke to any one, no mat- 
ter whom, without changing color; she could think of 
nothing but the beatings with which she was con- 
stantly threatened, and she had become yellower, 
leaner, and drier than a smoked herring. 

II 

One night, when her husband was away at sea, she 
was suddenly awakened by that growling, as of wild 
beasts, that the wind makes when it rushes upon us like 
a dog that has broken his chain. She was frightened 
and sat up in bed, then, hearing it no more, laid down 
again, but almost instantly there came a roaring in the 
chimney that seemed to make the whole house tremble, 
and it extended over all the heavens, as if a drove of 
maddened animals had passed, snorting and bellowing, 
through space. 

Then she arose and hurried to the harbor. Other 
women came flocking there from every quarter, bear- 
ing lanterns. The men came running up, and they all 
stood looking out to sea, watching the foam on the 
crest of the waves as it shone in the darkness of the 
night. 

The storm lasted fifteen hours, There were eleven 
sailors who never came back, and Patin was one of 
them. 

What was left of his vessel, the Little Emily, was 
picked up over Dieppe way. The bodies of his men 
were recovered in the neighborhood of Saint Val£ry, 



THE DROWNED MAN. 



but his was never found. As the boat's Hull seemed 
to have been cut in two, his wife for a long time ex- 
pected, and feared, to see him come home, for if there 
had been a collision it might well be that the colliding 
vessel had taken him aboard, him alone of all the crew, 
and carried him off to distant parts. 

By slow degrees she familiarized herself with the 
thought that she was a widow, but would never fail to 
be startled whenever a neighbor or a beggar or a 
vagrant peddler unexpectedly entered her house. 

A§ she was passing along the Rue aux Juifs one 
afternoon, about four years after her husband's disap- 
pearance, she stopped in front of an old sea-captain's 
house who had died a short time before, and whose 
household goods were being auctioned off. 

It so chanced that just at that moment they were 
bidding on a parrot, a green parrot with a blue head, 
who was considering the assemblage with an air of de- 
jection and anxiety. 

' 'Three francs ! " exclaimed the auctioneer; "three 
francs, for a bird that can talk like a lawyer!'* 

A friend of the widow Patin gave her a nudge with 
her elbow : 

''You've got plenty of money," she said; "you 
ought to buy that bird. It would be company for 
you ; it's worth more than thirty francs, that bird is. 
You could get twenty or twenty-five for it, anytime 
you wanted to sell it." 

"Four francs! ladies, four francs!" the man con- 
tinued. "He can sing vespers and preach as good a 
sermon as M. the cure. He is a wonder — a phenom- 
enon!" 

Madame Patin raised the bid fifty centimes and the 



j 86 



THE DROWNED MAX. 



hook-billed bird was knocked down to her, and sh€ 
walked off, carrying it with her in a little cage. 

When she got home she hung up the cage, and as 
she was opening the wire door to give the brute a drink 
he snapped at her finger with his beak and bit it so 
that the blood came. 

"Ah! how cross he is," she said. 

Nevertheless she gave him some hemp-seed and corn 
to eat and then left him to smooth down his rumpled 
feathers, which he did, casting meanwhile sly, stealthy 
glances upon his new abode and his new mistress. 

The day was just breaking next morning when the 
widow heard a voice, as distinct as could be, a loud, 
ringing, resounding voice, old Patin's voice, shouting: 

"Will you get up, carrion!" 

Her fright was so great that she drew the sheets up 
over her head, for every morning, in the old days, as 
soon as he had fairly got his eyes open, her deceased 
husband had yelled in her ears those five words that 
were so familiar to her. 

Trembling in every limb, curled up like a ball and 
her back made ready to receive the shower of blows 
that she already felt in anticipation, she murmured, 
sinking her face still deeper into the pillow: 

"Holy Father, there he is! Holy Father, there he 
is I He is back again, Holy Father!" 

The minutes passed ; no further sound disturbed the 
silence of the chamber. Then, quaking still with her 
great fear, she protruded her head from the bedclothes 
in the certainty that she should behold him there, 
watching her, prepared to beat her. 

She saw nothing, nothing but a sunbeam shining 
through the window-pane, and she thought: 



THE DROWNED MAN. 



187 



"He has hidden himself away somewhere, depend 
on't." 

She waited a long time, then, her fears being some- 
what reassured, came to the conclusion: 

"I must have been dreaming, since he don't come 
out and show himself." 

She was just closing her eyes again, a little embold- 
ened by this reflection, when, close to her ear, as it 
seemed, exploded the wrathful voice, the drowned 
man's voice of thunder, vociferating: 

"Name of a name, of a name, of a name, will you 
get up, you ! M 

She sprang from her bed, impelled by the instinct of 
obedience, by the blind obedience of a woman who 
has known many a beating, who remembers still, after 
four years have gone by, and who will always remem- 
ber and always obey that dread voice. And she said: 

"Here I am, Patin; what do you want?" 

But Patin answered not. 

Then she looked about her wildly, distractedly; 
then she searched the room through, every part of it, 
the closets, the fireplace, beneath the bed, and found 
no one ; and at last she sank into a chair, beside her- 
self with terror, certain that Patin's spirit, divested of 
its earthly garb, was there, at her side, returned 
again to earth to torment her. 

All at once she thought of the garret, which could 
be reached from outside by means of a ladder. There 
could be no doubt of it, he had concealed himself up 
there the better to surprise her. It must have been 
that the savages had held him prisoner upon some dis- 
tant coast and he had been unable to escape them 
until then, and now he was returned, more ruffianly 



THE DROWXED MAX. 



than ever. The mere ring of his voice was clear 
enough evidence of that. 

Raising her face toward the ceiling, she asked : 

"Are you up there, Patin?" 

Patin made no answer. 

Then she left the house, and, with a horrible fear that 
seemed to freeze her very heart, climbed the ladder, 
threw back the shutter of the window, looked into the 
room, saw nothing, entered, searched, and found 
nothing. 

Seating herself upon a bundle of straw she gave way 
to tears, but while she sat there sobbing, transpierced 
by a weird and breathless terror, in her chamber below 
she heard Patin going over his story. His anger 
seemed to have subsided, he was calmer, and this was 
what he was saying: 

"Dirty weather! High wind! Dirty weather! 
I've had no breakfast, name of a name!" 

She shouted to him through the ceiling: 

"Here I am, Patin; I'm going to make the soup for 
you. Don't be angry, I'm coming." And she has- 
tened down the ladder. There was no one in the 
room. 

She felt her strength failing her, as if Death had 
touched her with his finger, and was about to take to 
her heels and ask protection from the neighbors when 
the voice, right at her ear, shouted: 

"I've had no breakfast, name of a name!" 

And there was the parrot in his cage, watching her 
with his round, sly, wicked eye. 

She looked at him, too, as if her senses were leaving 
her, muttering: 

"Ah! it's you!" 



THE DROWNED MAX. 



189 



The bird continued, with a movement cf its head : 
"Wait, wait, wait, I'll teach you to dawdle!" 
What passed through her mind? She felt, she knew 
that it was no other than he, the dead man, who had re- 
turned ; who had disguised himself in the feathers of 
this brute to begin afresh his old work of torment ; that 
he would swear at her all day long, as he had done 
before, and bite her, and yell at her with taunting 
words to raise the neighbors and make them laugh. 
Then she made a wild rush, opened the cage, seized 
the bird, which tore her flesh with beak and claws in 
its struggle to defend itself ; but she held him with all 
her strength, in both her hands, and throwing herself 
upon the floor she rolled upon him with the frenzy of 
one possessed, crushed him, reduced him to a rag of 
flesh, a small, green object, devoid of speech or move- 
ment and which dangled from her hand inanimate; 
then, taking a dish-clout, she wrapped the shapeless 
mass in it as in a shroud, went out by the door, 
barefooted, in her chemise, crossed the wharf, 
against which the sea was breaking in small waves, 
and, shaking out the cloth, let fall into the water that 
small dead object that was like nothing so much as a 
handful of grass; then she returned to the house, and 
throwing herself upon her knees before the empty cage, 
all wrought up by what she had done, sought forgive- 
ness from God the Comforter, sobbing, the while, as 
if she had been guilty of some horrible crime. 



The Cigarette. 

JULES CLARETIE. 



IT was in the time of the war of Don Carlos, the 
last one, yes, sir. All this Basque country, these 
environs of Saint Sebastian, these mountains of Gui- 
puzcoa, they have all reeked with blood and powder — 
and that for months, for long, long months. You 
must have seen many blackened and torn walls in the 
country. Yes, you say? Well! those were once 
farms, houses, abodes of life and happiness; now they 
are ruins, graveyards, almost. That is war. 

"They fought — you should have seen them fight! 
The Carlists on one side, the soldiers of the govern- 
ment at Madrid on the other. These roads, look you, 
have beheld long trains of dead and wounded, poor 
lads who knew that they were doomed to die, and 
who asked themselves why — why? Civil wars, ah! 
fine things those civil wars are! And when one 
thinks that it may commence again to-morrow — who 
knows? Men are such fools! 

"You see how it was; they bring us word, one fine 
morning, that the king is there, that Don Carlos is 
come; then it is all plain sailing, the old leaven rises, 

191 



192 



THE CIGARETTE. 



and you see our Basque peasants hastening to the pre- 
tender and supplying him with an army. That means 
wearing a fine uniform, with the flat cap cocked over 
the ear, and coming into the villages with trumpets 
sounding and, when they have stacked muskets, giving 
the girls a dance on the green to the accompaniment 
of their singing. It means, too, that they will hear 
the bullets whistle, for our Basques are brave, live 
frugally and die well. But good-by to the harvests, 
to the apple trees, to the daily life of their poor world ! 
They fought all day long; they fought for three years. 
At a given moment, sir, you might have seen all these 
miry roads filled with men of the same country whose 
only thought it was to cut one another's throat. 

"You know the story of the siege of Bilbao, that the 
Carlists squeezed as if they had it in a vise. The city 
had to be relieved, and Don Carlos' soldiers held the 
passes between Saint Sebastian and Bilbao, repelled 
the attacks that were made on them and thrashed the 
columns of troops that were hurled against them with 
the bayonet. The Carlist chief who commanded in 
this quarter was named Zucarraga. He was a hero, 
sir! An old army officer, who had returned his sword 
to the government of Madrid, saying: 'Give it to some 
one else and let it be turned against my breast; the 
sword that I shall carry henceforth I will receive from 
my rightful king.' Thirty years old he was, and hand- 
some, tall, superb. He held the mountains about 
here, and never let go his hold. They sent their best 
troops against him, and every day they sent fresh 
troops. We saw them come back, the poor halting, 
crippled soldiers, with their decimated ranks and their 
officers borne on bloody litters, shaking their heads 



THE CIGARETTE. 



193 



mournfully and saying: 'See! it is for the sake of 
Spain that they are murdering Spain!' 

"That Zucarraga! His reputation increased with 
every reverse of the national army. Folks said to 
one another: 'It is Thomas Zumalacarregui come to 
life again!' Zumalacarregui, you know, the paladin 
of the other Carlist war, in the old times. Even his 
name reminded people of the other one, and this made 
Zucarraga a hero of romance, a general whose name 
was sung in the songs of the people, like the Cid. 

"The general who was in command at Hernani — 
yes, the little town where, as the Gazette told us the 
other day, your great writer Hugo passed his child- 
hood and the name of which he has made illus- 
trious — the general, who kept sending his poor sol- 
diers forward against the passes' that Zucarraga was 
defending, was wild with rage. He had promised 
himself that he would force a passage, crush the flat- 
capped people and pierce their lines and relieve Bil- 
bao. Ah! yes, indeed! Every attack was followed 
by a defeat, every assault resulted in something that 
was very near a rout. The dispirited troops returned 
with hanging head and heavy foot, leaving their dead 
lying bv the roadside. 

"As General Garrido one evening, up there on the 
Place de rAyuntamiento, was watching his shattered 
battalions as they slowly and sullenly re-entered their 
cantonments, while in the distance, over in the direc- 
tion of the mountains, Zucarraga's artillery was growl- 
ing away as usual and we were looking at the smoke ris- 
ing, rising from the depths of the valley along the 
bloodstained mountain-side, the general, I say— his 
gray hairs surmounted by his ros s his ros that in days 



*94 



THE CIGARETTE. 



gone by had been pierced by the bullets of the Moors 
— said, his fists clenched and his eyes flashing like a 
mitrailleuse: 

" 'Ah! that Zucarraga! that Zucarraga! that 
wretch of a Zucarraga! I would give my skin for 
his! And there is a fortune waiting for the man that 
kills him ! ' 

"He was beside himself with rage, shedding bitter 
tears to see his regiments melting away like the snow 
among these defiles. It seemed to him as if all those 
brave boys that lay scattered along the roadside were 
children of his own whom he had lost, whom some one 
had taken from him and slaughtered. And who had 
done this? Zucarraga, Zucarraga's Basques, the 
Carlists! 

"The words were scarcely out of old Garrido's mouth 
when, there on that Place that was swarming with 
troops, upon which the shades of night were descend- 
ing, a tall, good-looking young fellow stepped forward 
and planted himself in front of the general's staff and, 
looking the old officer straight in the eye, brusquely 
said: 

"'If I should kill Zucarraga, would you give me 
whatever I might ask you for?' 

"'.Who are you?' said Garrido. 

"'Juan Araquil, a. lad of this neighborhood. A 
man who is not afraid of death, but who has sworn 
that he will be rich. ' 

"The general eyed the man from head to foot. . 
'You are from Guipuzcoa? How is it that you are not 
with the army of Don Carlos?' 

" 'Because there is nothing that I care for in this 
world, excepting a woman whom I love.' 



THE CIGARETTE, 



195 



" *A fiancee?' 

"'Ah! I wish it were a fiancee! No, a farmer's 
daughter, with too much wealth for me, who am too 
poor and want to get money to win her.' 

4 'He was well known throughout the countryside, 
was this Araquil, and we were all acquainted with his 
history, his love for the daughter of old Chegaray, a 
warm Guipuzcoa farmer, controlling four or five farms 
in this neighborhood and owner of hillsides where the 
apple trees bent beneath their weight of fruit and 
yielded cider in quantities — oh! it would have done 
you good to see. I have never tasted your French 
cider that they talk so much about, but isn't it true 
that it is not as good as our cider of Guipuzcoa? — It 
is not I who make the assertion. 

"Father Chegaray lived between Hernani and fort 
Santa Barbara, which you may have seen on your w r ay 
here from Saint Sebastian. Old Chegaray was as 
proud of Pepa, his daughter, as an Andalusian woman 
is of her jewels. He would hold his head very erect 
when he conducted his little girl to vespers or to the 
romerias, at our season of merrymaking. It is at the 
romerias that the young folks become engaged to one 
another, frequently without the parents being con- 
sulted. How quickly it comes about, in the midst of 
laughter and the dance! A heart is captured and a 
life is given in exchange. 

"Down yonder in the valley at Loyola, not very far 
from here, there lived in those days a tall, good-look- 
ing young scapegrace who was eternally fluttering 
about the pretty girls, and who had all the qualities, 
faith, which find favor in the eyes of young women, 
but not a single one of those that are regarded kindly 



196 THE CIGARETTE. 

by the young women's parents. It was that same 
Araquil who had come to old General Garrido to tell 
the tale of his aspirations. A lively youth, this young- 
ster was, always ready for some mad frolic; first in the 
game of tennis, strong as a horse and agile as a 
monkey, devil-may-care, prone to fisticuffs; killing his 
bulls in their impromptu novilladas as deftly as a pro- 
fessional espada and quite willing to get a broken head 
or a perforated hide upon any pretext, or upon none 
at all, for that matter. And bearing himself like a 
king, withal, with the air of a cavalier and a chin that 
was always freshly shaven, with the form of a Hercu- 
les and the hand of a woman. In addition to all this 
he had not a sou to his name, living from hand to 
mouth, now on the stakes of a tennis-match won from 
the lads of Bilbao or Tolosa, now on the proceeds of 
a bet made with the toreros, whom he braved — oh ! so 
arrogantly! — in the bull-ring and in the combat with 
knives. At Saint Sebastian one day, when the bewil- 
dered cuadrilla could not dispose of the bull, a furious 
black brute with flanks specked with great spots of red 
foam, slavering at the mouth with blood and froth', 
Juan Araquil begins to hiss, and the p.eople in the 
circus, spectators and toreros, shout: 'Well, then, 
into the ring with you, into the ring!' Ah! Juan 
did not hesitate, sir. He rises, he leaps over the rail- 
ing, he takes from the astounded espada — perhaps 
he was pleased with the prospect of soon seeing this 
great fool impaled on the bull's horns — he takes the 
short-handled sword, you know, he takes it like that, 
and planting himself squarely before the animal, he 
looks him in the face, he laughs in his nostrils, he 
makes a forward thrust with the point, — that way, — 



THE CIGARETTE. 



197 



justaselTato or Lagartijo might have done, andbani, 
bourn, the bull falls all in a lump, while Juan Araquii 
turns to the toreros and says to them, laughing all the 
while: 'You see, you fellows — it is easy enough!' 

"But that is not the whole of the story. It made the 
toreros furious, wild with anger, to hear the shouts of 
the crowd, the bravos with which they saluted Araquii 
and the hisses that they visited upon the espada; they 
get together and surround Araquii, intending to take 
him to task for his audacity and perhaps, eh! parbleu, 
play him some nasty trick. Ah! well, very good! 
Araquii gives a look at this circle of enraged men. He 
gathers himself up, jumps clean over the head of the 
torero who is in front of him and makes his -escape to 
the benches, leaving unbroken the circle that was 
about to close in on him and kill him. That evening 
he and one of the toreros fought with knives behind 
the circus and .the torero buried his knife right in his 
chest. Juan Araquii kept his bed for two weeks, but 
when the two weeks were up he was as sound as ever. 
He was ready to kill another bull, and a torero as well, 
this time, should there be need of it. 

"When our toreros are wounded, you know, they 
don't regard it as a matter of much consequence. 
Their skin unites again, their flesh heals quickly, 
They are carried off riddled with wounds from the 
bulls' horns, they are given up for dead — a sign of 
the cross, well, requiescat ! — and at the month's end 
there they are, back again, with the espada or the 
banderilla in their hand. That was the kind of clay 
that Juan Araquii was made of! A slash of a knife 
or a blow from a tennis-racket — nothing hurt him. 
He was a man of iron, a genuine Basque. 



i9« 



THE CIGARETTE. 



"Then, besides, he had remedies for wounds, for he 
dabbled a little in almost everything and had asso- 
ciated with the bone-setters and the folks who make 
drugs and ointments out of the herbs that grow on the 
mountain to set you on your feet when there is any- 
thing wrong with you. He had even caused to be 
compounded for himself a sort of extract of some ma- 
lignant plants or other, I don't know exactly what — 
flowers of aconite, or something of that description — 
which he carried about with him in a ring on his fin- 
ger, saying that a man should always have it in his 
power to be master of his own life, and that sometimes, 
when one wishes to make an end of it, he fails to find 
his knife ready at hand. A knife, that may be taken 
from you; a ring, no — and by a simple movement of 
the finger to the lips, you are free. There ! He was a 
man, was that Araquil. 

"So one day (it was Easter Monday), at the romeria 
of Loyola, this handsome young fellow of twenty-five, 
who had been loved but had never loved, met a young 
girl whom he invited to dance with him, even as he had 
invited many another. It was Pepa Chegaray. A 
waltz-tune has the effect of turning young folks' 
brains, and the guitar ero is the grand -master of the 
art of love — that is the way I feel about it, at least. It 
was fated that neither Juan nor Pepa were to forget 
that first interview, that dance in the open air, the 
music accompanied by smiles and song, more intoxi- 
cating than our cider. 

In the morning there rises a beautiful star, 
They say there is none more beautiful in the heavens ; 
But here on earth. Oh, my loved one, there is one that is 
brighter 



THE CIGARETTE. 



199 



And which has riot its equal in the blue sky, 
And to that one my heart goes forth 
As the water flows, seeking its level. 

"Ever since that Easter Monday Juan Araquil, 
usually so cheerful, had been morose and very gloomy, 
having but little to say, and there was never a smile to 
be seen on the face of Father Tiburcio Chegaray down 
there in his home. The reason of it was that that 
good-for-nothing urchin Love had passed that way. 

"Oh! it was an absorbing, an engrossing love, that 
fell on them as swiftly as a thunder-clap. It hap- 
pens that way, sometimes. She dreamed of him; he 
could think of nothing but her. He was as melan- 
choly as a garden where there are no flowers, and his 
love did not improve his temper. Why? Because he 
had not a douro in his pocket, and Pepa was rich, 
and, what was worse yet, Father Tiburcio, that man 
of iron, had told his daughter that never, never would 
he give his Pepa to a man w T hose sole fortune w r as his 
tennis-ball. 

" 'But after all,' Araquil said to Father Chegaray 
one day, 'Pepa loves me; she has told me that she 
does.' 

14 'She has told me so, too/ replied the father. 

" 'I adore her. I am mad with love for her. I 
shall kill myself unless you give her to me. What 
must I do to obtain her for my wife?' 

" 'Do what I have always done,' replied the 
farmer, 'work, and bring home the wherewithal to buy 
bread for the children. I have not toiled all my life 
long to throw away my money and my daughter on a 
man who does nothing but hang around the romerias. 
When you can come to me and tell me that you have 



20O 



THE CIGARETTE. 



saved up a little something and can supply your share 
of bread and salt, you shall have Pepa, since she loves 
you.' 

" 'And the share that I must contribute is — how 
much?' Juan asked. 

" 'Two thousand douros!' 

"That's equal to ten thousand francs of your money. 

" 'Two thousand douros!' said Araquil, very pale. 
'Where can I look to find such a sum as that?' 

" 'I found it in the ground, I did,' the farmer an- 
swered. 'Seek it there!' 

"And Tiburcio was not a man to go back on his 
word when he had once said a thing, not he! All that 
was left for Araquil to do* was to kill himself, as he 
had threatened, or else go to work with pick and spade 
and earn the money. Pepa, like a good girl, would 
not disobey her father, but she was very much in love 
with the good-looking youngster and would subdue her 
impatience and wait until Juan had collected the re- 
quired sum. In their furtive meetings, however, as 
well as in their conversations in presence of the old 
man, she did not attempt to conceal from Araquil that 
her feeling for him was of that nature that forms an 
indissoluble tie between two beings until it is sancti- 
fied by the last sacrament. She had even sworn to 
him — she had sworn it on the mass-book of her dead 
mother — that she would never be another's if she 
could not be his. Such a vow, uttered by a creature 
as beautiful as the stars in heaven, was well calculated 
to inspire courage in the heart of a bold man. Juan 
said to himself : 'Well! yes; yes, I will get them, those 
-two thousand douros! I don't see how I am to get 
them, but I will get them ! ' 



THE CIGARETTE, 



20T 



"And how he cudgeled his brains with cogitating 
over different projects, and how he strove and toiled! 
He was near dashing his head against the wall of the 
tennis-ground at Saint Sebastian one day in his fury at 
having lost a game with the champion of Tolosa by a 
point. The betting was heavy. It would have been 
a nest-egg for him had he won. And Araquil was 
beaten by a point, by a miserable point, and the boys 
of Hernani with him! He tore his hair, he thumped 
himself on the forehead, he was beside himself with 
rage. 

"He must have those two thousand douros, and he 
kept repeating to himself- what Pepa had said to him : 

4< 'Life with you or with no one, Araquil. But I 
shall obey my father while he is alive, and I shall al- 
ways respect my father's wishes when he is dead.' 

"He had reached such a state, poor Juan, that he 
thought of going far away. He had been told that the 
Basques who emigrated sometimes made their fortune 
out there at La Plata, in America. Yes, sir, it seems 
that the tennis-players of our country are able to pick 
up dollars by the handful at Buenos Ay res. The 
pretty house that you will see to the right of the road 
as you go back to Saint Sebastian belongs to a young 
fellow of Hernani who made his money in that way in 
the southern part of the New World. If it had not 
been for the idea of leaving Pepa, of never seeing her, 
even from a distance, at mass or at vespers, at the 
bull-fights, or even at her window when he passed the 
farmhouse, Araquil would certainly have gone away. 
Yes, he would have gone away. And then, a trapper 
or a gold-hunter, as the occasion offered, he would 
have sought wealth, since the old man had said to 



202 



THE CIGARETTE. 



him : 'Seek V It would have been better for him had 
he done so. 

"But while matters were in this condition, along 
comes the war, the last war, and sets the land on fire, 
— there is no other way of expressing it than that, — 
and the things that I have been telling you of hap- 
pened before Bilbao. So, then, to resume my story, 
this tall young adventurer comes and posts himself 
before General Garrido, who is in a despairing mood, 
and briefly relates his history, and while the old vet- 
eran of Morocco, now beaten by the Carlists, looks at 
him with frowning eyes, Juan Araquil adds: 

14 'If the life of Zucarraga is worth a fortune, as you 
say, general, I will win that fortune!' 

M 'The life of Zucarraga is worth more than a for- 
tune,' Garrido replied. 'It counterbalances the lives 
of thousands of my poor boys. The name Zucarraga 
means resistance, it means the key that will unlock 
Bilbao for us, it means a continuation of slaughter, 
that is all. You are not a soldier. I have no orders 
to give you, but if you do what you *ay you will do, 
remind me of what I have said!' 

" 'Very well!' said Juan. 'We shall meet soon 
again, general ! ' 

"Old Garrido shrugged his shoulders and won- 
dered for a moment if the man was not a spy. 
- "Araquil, for his part, allowed his mind to dwell on 
only one thing: Zucarraga' s life was worth a fortune! 
And that fortune, for which he cared as much as he 
cared for a # raw onion, he longed for it only because it 
would give him his Pepa. He left Hernani, he disap- 
peared from sight. Nothing was heard of him for sev- 
eral days. The general said: 'I have been dealing 



THE CIGARETTE. 203 

with a crazy man/ and went on to make preparation 
for a night attack, intending to surprise Zucarraga and 
carry the pass in the darkness, with only the flashes 
of his musketry to light him. 

"In the meantime Araquil was roaming about the 
Carlist intrenchments. With his knife in his pocket, 
that knife that at need he could hurl with the force of 
a ball from a musket and plant unerringly in the re- 
mote target, he waited, sleeping by the light of the 
stars, wherever he chanced to be, for an opportunity 
of approaching Zucarraga and ridding old Garrido of 
the Carlist chieftain. What was the life of that parti- 
san commander to him? War with artillery, war with 
the knife, it is war all the same. One has the right to 
kill when he stakes his own life at the same time. He 
kept repeating these arguments to himself and was on 
the alert, watching his chance. One night when he 
had come too near to the half-wrecked farmhouse in 
which Zucarraga had his quarters among the ruins, a 
sentry's bullet whistled close to Araquil's head, so 
close that it carried away a little of the flesh from his 
left ear. He paid not the slightest attention to it, and 
regretted only one circumstance, that the Carlist sen- 
tinel had caught sight of him. Had it not been for 
that he would have leaped the wall and been at Zu- 
carraga's side! Now it was all to do over again. 

* 4 Very well, then ; he would begin again on the mor- 
row. But that morrow was the very day that Garrido 
had selected for the night attack. Juan Araquil, 
lying in a ditch, like a wild beast crouching in his 
lair, was forming his plans for reaching Zucarraga, 
this time, at every risk, at the very moment when old 
Garrido was sending out an attacking column against 



204 THE CIGARETTE. 

the Carlists. Araquil was surprised when the first 
shots of the engagement reached his ears, the succeed- 
ing ones delighted him. As there was a battle on, 
Zucarraga would come forth, would lead his troops into 
the firing. If Juan could slip up to him it would soon 
be done: the knife to his heart, and in open conflict, 
this time, not in a cowardly ambush. Ah! so Zucar- 
raga's blood was worth a fortune? Father Chegaray 
should have his two thousand douros — and so much 
the worse for the Carlists! 

"It was a plucky fight that was fought that night. 
Garrido's troops were in earnest, they came up to the 
assault of the intrenchments with bayonets fixed and 
struck up against the Carlists, whom they thought to 
surprise, but who were on the alert. The murdering, 
the killing went on under the cover of the darkness of 
night. Breasts were pierced by bayonets, heads were 
broken by revolvers. The work of slaughter was car- 
ried on by men who were invisible to one another. 
And I say again, what a pity it is that such things 
should happen among Spaniards ! 

"And the bloody work went on for a long time. At 
early dawn the soldiers of the army were once again 
retreating, poor devils, and what frightful loss their 
attempt had cost them! The attack had been fruit- 
less. A night of slaughter that only added another to 
their series of defeats. Old Garrido, down there in 
his camp, would shed fresh tears of rage. The Car- 
lists, on the other hand, after having fought all night, 
saluted the dawn with their joyful shouts: Harri! 
If am'/ Then all at once their shouts, their glee 
subsided, and a black silence fell upon them. Their 
invincible chieftain — he whose voice had been heard 



THE CIGARETTE* 



that night in every quarter of the field animating his 
men : 'Come, courage, my children ! Stand up to the 
enemy!' Zucarraga — had been brought in, wounded 
in the leg, the bone shattered, so it was said. It was 
in front of the gutted, empty house where he usually 
slept. The prisoners of the army of Madrid — the 
Carlists had made many prisoners during the night — 
saw this superb, lofty young man, his face as pale as 
his white beret, with his black beard, surrounded by 
his officers. Zucarraga could no longer stand erect; 
his friends were sustaining him, holding him under 
the armpits. Some of his men brought a bench and 
he was placed upon it with his leg extended at full 
length. 

"Araquil was among the onlookers. 

"He had been captured with Garrido's men and 
with them placed in the general herd, and now Carlist 
sentries, with loaded muskets, were standing guard 
over him, together with the others. His knife, his 
famous knife, had been of no use to him. When, 
swept away by the prevailing disorder, he had seen 
himself captured and included among the number of 
the prisoners, he had thrown it away, saying to 
himself: 'It will be to do over again!' And 
now, doomed as he probably was to be shot, since 
he alone among the prisoners was not in uniform, he 
said to himself that it was all over, all over, and that 
Pepa would marry another or would die a maid; and 
he shot a bitter, envenomed glance toward that human 
victim who was escaping him, toward that Zucarraga, 
whom he was beginning to hate, he could not tell why 
— or because, rather, while Zucarraga lived, his, Ara- 
quiTs. life was a barren one, Pepa was lost to him. 



2o6 THE CIGARETTE. 

The Carlist officers were bustling anxiously about 
Zucarraga. Some of them were down on their knees 
examining the wound. One of them was calling for a 
surgeon. 

"'The surgeon! The surgeon, valgame Dios ! 
Where is Urrabieta, then? Where is he?' 

"Urrabieta was the surgeon of the Carlist detach- 
ment. Men were looking for. him in every direction. 
The officers were beginning to become impatient. 
Zucarraga, smiling, made a motion with his hand and 
said, very gently: 'Wait. Perhaps Urrabieta has 
fallen asleep. He must have had so much to do, last 
night ! ' 

"All at once a sergeant came running up toward the 
officers, very pale and with tears in his eyes. Urra- 
bieta, the surgeon, had just been found among the 
dead, where he had fallen, laid low by a bullet, upon 
the corpse of a Naverrese whose wound he had been 
looking to. It had happened in the darkness, like all 
the rest of it. A stray bullet. Those bits of lead, 
they bring death just as surely to those who cure as to 
those who kill! 

"Then there was consternation among the Carlists. 
Zucarraga's wound might be serious; nay, it was seri- 
ous. And no surgeon to attend to it! Waiting to 
summon those of the adjacent army-corps, that would 
be a proceeding fraught with danger. He was losing 
blood freely. Then one of his officers walked straight 
up to the group of prisoners and asked in a loud voice: 

" 'Is there a surgeon among you?' 

"Garrido's men looked one another in the face. 
No, there was no surgeon. They were all soldiers. 

" 'No one who can dress a wound?' 



THE CIGARETTE. 



"Thereupon a man made answer: 'Yes, I can!* 
f< 'Step forward, you!' 

"The man came forth from the drove of poor, de- 
jected creatures, wounded, some of them. He ad- 
vanced with head proudly erect. It was Araquil. 

44 'You are not a soldier?' said the officer. 

" 'No.' 

4< 4 Why are you here?* 

44 'Because they put me here. I am not a combat- 
ant, I am not. I was going to Bilbao to visit my re- 
lations, and the battle blocked my way. That is how 
it was.' 

" 'And you know something of medicine?' 

" 4 No. But I know how to treat wounds. I am a 
bit of a torero at odd times.' 

"The officer was distrustful and brought Araquil up 
to Zucarraga, who allowed his big black eyes to rest 
on the handsome young fellow. Then the Carlist 
chief called on him for an explanation. Araquil in- 
vented a story: he was longing to embrace his old 
parents, who were shut up in Bilbao. It was not his 
fault it the civil war separated families like that. He 
went his way, leading his usual life among the firing of 
the hostile armies. 

" 'You belong to the Basque country? Why are 
you not with the legitimist Pretender?' Zucarraga 
asked in turn. 

" 'Because I take sides with no one.' 

4 'The officers had been examining and scrutinizing 
the young man rather doubtfully. His answer elicited 
some murmurs among them, which Zucarraga checked. 

" 'Every one is free to do as he pleases,' he gently 
said. Then, bending his limpid glance straight into 



20S 



THE CIGARETTE. 



Juan's eyes: 'You say that you know something of 
the healing art? Can you, at least, alleviate my pain? 
I am suffering greatly.' 

"He pointed to his bare, bloodstained leg beneath 
the trousers that had been turned up and that were 
stiff with the red fluid. 

"Araquil took off his jacket, impetuously tore off 
the left sleeve of his shirt and on the improvised ban- 
dage, unseen of all, all the time manipulating the bit 
of linen, he slowly poured a few drops of a liquid — 
that which he had in his ring on his finger — and then, 
pale as a sheet, took two steps forward toward Zucar- 
raga, who had never, taken his eyes off him for a mo- 
ment. 

"There was no tremor in AraquiTs hand as it held 
that piece of linen, marked with a small yellow stain. 
As he was about to kneel before Zucarraga to bind up 
his wound, one of the officers said to the Carlist leader : 

" 'We know nothing of this man!' 

"The other replied, still with a smile on his 
face : 

M 'True, but neither do we know the physician, nor 
the priest.' 

"And he stretched his leg out toward Juan Araquil 
with a painful effort. 

" 'But what causes that yellow spot?' a captain 
inquired. 

; 'A remedy of my own, for the wound of the cor- 
rida,' Juan replied. 
" 'Nonsense!' 

"During all the operation Zucarraga never once 
took his great black eye away from that of Juan, and 
scarcely had the bandage been applied to the wound 



THE CIGARETTE. 



when the partisan said: 4 I feel better already!' 
Then, addressing Juan: 'You are free.' 

44 'But, general ,' interjected an officer. 

"Zucarraga raised his head. 'The least that I can 
do, sir,' said he, 'for this good youth is to repay his 
service by another.' Then, addressing Araquil: 
'What will you have beside?' 

" 'Nothing,' answered the other. 

"Zucarraga took from the pocket of his tunic a little 
cigarette case of Manilla straw and handed it to Juan : 
'In remembrance of me!' 

" 'No,' said Juan. 

"'Oh! oh!' — and Zucarraga smiled — 4 I fear that 
you don't cherish very kindly feelings toward the ser- 
vants of Don Carlos. Will you accept nothing from 
me?' 

" 'Yes, a cigarette.' 

"Araquil selected a papelito from the cigarette case 
and was looking at it and turning it about in his fin- 
gers in a mechanical sort of way before putting it in 
his pocket, when Zucarraga asked him: 

' ' 'Your name?' 

" 4 Juan Araquil.' 

" 'Well ! Araquil, go, and God be with you ! And 
if you want to see your relations, wait until we make 
our entry into Bilbao. It won't be long! — Give me 
your hand!' 

"Araquil, who was very pale, shook the hand that 
the wounded man held out to him, put on his jacket, 
and with a salute to the officers and a salute to the 
prisoners, forthwith took himself off, very leisurely, 
without hurrying, followed still by the penetrating 
look of the Carlist hero. 



2IO 



THE CIGARETTE. 



"That same evening, in the little inn -'parlor at Her- 
nani that served as headquarters, old Garrido beheld 
the tall young man with whom he had conversed six 
days before on the Place de 1' Ayuntamiento brought 
in under guard of some soldiers. 

"The general was beside himself, he was ill, was 
threatened with congestion of the brain; since the dis- 
aster of the previous night he had been talking of 
shooting himself. He received Araquil as he would 
have received a dog. 

1 'What do you want here, fellow? What assurance 
have I that you did not put those miserable Carlists on 
their guard?' 

44 'You ask me what I want, general? I want to 
talk to you — to you, alone! Yes, alone!' 

"And the lad spoke in such a distinct tone that old 
Garrido saw that he had something of importance to 
say and signed to his officers to leave them, the man 
and him. 

" 'Well! what is it?' he asked, when Juan's request 
had been complied with and they were alone. 

" Araquil waited a moment before speaking, as if 
the saliva had retreated from his mouth and left it 
parched and dry; then all at once he blurted out: 

" 'You told me, general, that Zucarraga's life was 
worth a fortune?' And as Garrido made no answer: 
'I am here to claim that fortune; I have earned it!' 

"The general looked at him, knitting his eyebrows, 
wondering if he could have heard aright, and Araquil 
stood there, facing him, pale as death. 

" 'What do you mean? How, earned it?' said Gar.- 
rido after a moment's silence. 'I do not understand 
you.' 



THE CIGARETTE. 



21 1 



M 'It is very simple, nevertheless,* Juan answered. 
'Zucarraga will never again give the command to fire 
on your troops.' 

" 'He is dead?' 

"'He ought to be, by this time. It it is not all 
over to-night, it will be by to-morrow.' 

"Old Garrido was deeply moved, and his face was 
as white as his mustache. He wished to know more, 
not understanding Araquil's 'it will be by to-morrow, ' 
and the lad told him everything: how he had tracked 
the Carlist chief, how he had endeavored to plant his 
knife in his breast, and, finally, how he had poured 
upon the raw flesh of the wounded man the poison of 
that ring that he had been keeping for himself. 

"It seemed to the general as if he were choking, 
strangling, in the clutches of some hideous nightmare. 
Beneath his snowy locks his black eyes blazed like 
balls of fire. He only allowed himself to say : 

" 'You did that, you? You did that? To a 
wounded man?' 

"Then Juan, speaking as a madman might speak, 
went on to tell how he would have done a great deal 
more than that for the sake of winning Pepa, and that 
as Father Chegaray had insisted on a portion of two 
thousand douros, he had taken those two thousand 
douros where he could find them. And besides — and 
the general himself had said it — he had caused the 
death of many men, and was continually causing their 
death, and brave men, too, this Zucarraga! 

" 'In battle, yes!' said Garrido hotly. 'In battle!' 

"But that was an argument that had no force for 
Araquil; the only justification that he offered for what 
he had done was his passion for Pepa. He wanted 



212 



THE CIGARETTE. 



Pepa. He could purchase her with the blood of 
Zucarraga. It was well. That was all there was of it. 

"Garrido had promised; Araquil came there, de- 
manding payment of the debt. The general said: 

" 'It is no more than just/ 

"He asked where Pepa lived, summoned an aid- 
de-camp, gave him the address and, pointing to Ara- 
quil, said : 

" 'You will lodge that man in the Fonda del Sol. 
And to-morrow you will have the chaplain in readi- 
ness. Yes, for a marriage. Go!' 

"Juan's night in the fonda that had been trans- 
formed into a guardhouse seemed to him to pass 
very slowly. A long, long night it was, that seemed 
as if it would never end, with the distant barking of 
dogs — those howls that tell of coming death — and the 
sound of firing down there in the direction of the 
Carlist advanced posts. 

"With the approach of morning he fell into a light 
slumber, dreaming of Pepa and, in his dream, placing 
gold coins in old Chegaray's skinny hand, the portion 
of a living woman, the money received for a corpse. 

"Ir. was broad day when a detachment of soldiers, 
headed by a sergeant, came to take Juan from the 
guardhouse. Who was it that wanted him? The 
general. More than this, in reply to Araquil's ques- 
tions, the sergeant would not answer. They ascended 
the main street of Hernani, the little, narrow street 
where the houses were crowded and bunched closely 
together, with ancient escutcheons carved on their 
sandstone walls and those blue and yellow mouchara- 
bies that struck you as so pretty awhile ago, until at 
last they halted on the Grande Place. The weather 



THE CIGARETTE. 



was splendid; a brilliant sun was gilding the red 
walls of the old church and the shattered ruins, black- 
ened by fire, of the Hotel de Ville. The square was 
crowded with people ; troops were drawn up in line, and 
near the church steps stood Garrido in full uniform, very- 
pale, with his officers about him, while a few steps away, 
beautiful as a saint in the black veils of her holiday 
attire, was Pepa, with old Chegaray standing at her 
side. 

"Araquil beheld all that at a glance: the assembled 
troops with their bayonets gleaming in the sunlight, 
the general, the beautiful girl, and through the open 
doors of the church, down there at the bottom of the 
scene, a chapelle ardente, the great chapel all stream- 
ing with light and gold. 

4 4 They conducted him before Garrido. 

"Araquil cast a searching look upon Pepa, and she 
regarded him with a strange air from out her black eyes 
beneath their fringe of long lashes, and it seemed to 
Juan that the gilded mass-book that she held in her 
hand — the book upon which she had sworn to be his 
wife — was trembling in the clasp of her black- gloved 
fingers. 

44 'Bring hither the priest!' said the general. 

44 The holy man appeared upon the steps of stone as 
if he had been awaiting the general's order — a white- 
robed priest, who stopped upon the threshold, motion- 
less as a statue — the while the great bells in the campa- 
nile were pealing forth from their wide mouths, wide- 
gaping mouths like those of great siege-guns, their 
festal hosannah, the merry marriage hymn, the hymn 
of the happy ! 

44 'Tiburcio Chegaray,' said the general, then, ad- 



214 



THE CIGARETTE. 



dressing the old farmer, 'here is Juan Araquil with 
the portion of two thousand douros that you demanded 
as the condition of giving him your daughter. That 
which is promised should be performed. Do you con- 
sent to the marriage of Juan Araquil and your child?* 

"Old Chegaray answered in a hoarse voice: 

"'Yes!' 

"'Juan Araquil,' said Garrido, 'you consent to 

receive Pepa Chegaray as your wife?' 

" 'Yes,' replied Juan, in a tone of deep feeling. 

"He had thrown into that yes the very essence of 
his being. The priest stood waiting, ready to give 
them his benediction. 

"'Pepa Chegaray,' demanded Garrido, turning to 
the young woman, 'do you consent to receive Juan 
Araquil, who stands before you, as your husband?' 

"Pepa advanced two steps toward Juan, cast her 
handsome black eyes upon him, and made answer: 

M 'No!' 

"There was a stifled outcry among the crowd that 
filled the space behind the line of soldiers, an ominous 
ah I The soldiers stood motionless, watching the 
scene. 

"'No,' repeated the young girl, raising her voice, 
'I have sworn that I would marry no one but you, and 
having made that vow, I will marry no one. But 
never will I be the wife of a dastard ! ' 

" Juan Araquil might have been taken for one bereft 
of reason, as he stood there looking at her; his face wr.s 
haggard and drawn and as white as the priest's cope. 
Far, very far in the distance, from the depths of the 
valley, the assemblage could now hear the mournful 
sound, of a bell as it rose and rose and swelled over 



THE CIGARETTE. 



215 



the intervening hills, the sound of the funeral knell, 
the long-drawn, wailing lament of the bell mourning 
the dead. The Carlists were ringing the knell of the 
dying, and the poison had done its work. 

"The bells of Hernani, too, as if wishing in their 
turn to do honor to the dying man, had gradually 
ceased ringing; they were silent, up there in their 
tower, and all that was heard was the tolling of the 
knell, the distant knell. 

"Then, all at once, the knell, too, ceased tolling and 
a silence settled down upon the crowded place, as if 
the wind had whispered to all those ears the news that 
all was over down there in the valley. 

" 'Zucarraga is dead'/ said old Garrido. 

"Araquil cast a burning glance toward Pepa, as if 
beseeching her to read his thoughts. 

" 'It is for thy sake! It was for thy sake!' he said 
to her reproachfully. 

"Pepa turned away her head. 

"Then the general, addressing Juan, coldly said : 

"'Araquil, what disposition do you wish made of 
your two thousand douros?' 

" 'The money?' Araquil had understood. 'Let it 
be given to the poor. I want nothing for myself, not 
even a cross in the graveyard.' Pointing to the pla- 
toon that had acted as guard to him, he added : 'That 
is for me, I suppose?' 

" 'Araquil, no man takes a soldier's life by poison,' 
replied Garrido, 

"Then Juan Araquil made the sign of the cross, 
kneeled before the priest and said aloud: 'God have 
mercy on my soul!' And now the bells of Hernani 
were tolling the knell for the dying, even as those of 



2l6 



THE CIGARETTE.. 



the plain had done, down beneath the hill of Santa 
Barbara. 

"Juan arose, took from the pocket of his jacket a 

cigarette, the cigarette that Zucarraga had given him, 
and asked the sergeant for a light. When the papelito 
was alight he placed it between his lips, turned and 
gave a last look at Pepa, who made a movement as if 
she would have gone to him, but nerved herself and 
remained where she was, and the tall, handsome lad, 
with a melancholy smile upon his face, lifted his head 
proudly and was lost to sight among the soldiers, who 
moved off in obedience to a sign from Garrido. 

"Pepa turned, endeavoring to see him, to catch one 
last glimpse of him; she could not distinguish him 
in the circle of muskets that was receding along the 
church wall; all that she could make out was a little 
cloud of smoke, a thin blue smoke that rose above the 
heads of the men, among the flashing bayonets, and 
floated away in the clear sky. 

"i\nd chants were begun, and prayers were put up, 
there in the church, while Juan Araquil, passing along 
that red wall, in the bright sunlight, was taking the 
last pull at his cigarette. 

"Then, amid the silence as of death that reigned 
over the place, Pepa heard a command given in the 
distance and a rattling as of arms shifted, and then there 
came to her ears, distinctly audible, this word : 'Fire ! ' 

"She fell upon her knees, heartbroken, and was 
beginning to recite aloud: 'Our Father, which art in 
heaven, — ' but the crash of the discharge that ensued 
immediately brought her prayer to an abrupt end. 

"At the same instant Juan Araquil, who until then 
had remained erect against the wall of the parsonage, 



THE CIGARETTE, 



217 



his breast streaming with blood, sank, face downward, 
lifeless to the ground. 

"When the sergeant approached the body to fire the 
'shot of mercy* into the ear, the cigarette that Juan 
was holding in his fingers was still emitting a little 
thread of blue smoke — Zucarraga's cigarette! And 
that smoke outlived Zucarraga the hero, and Araquil 
the murderer." 



The Attack on the Mill. 



EMItE ZOLA. 



i 

IT was high holiday at Father Merlier's mill on that 
pleasant summer afternoon. Three tables had been 
brought out into the garden and placed end to end in 
the shade of the great elm, and now they were await- 
ing the arrival of the guests. It was known through- 
out the length and breadth of the land that that day 
was to witness the betrothal of old Merlier's daughter, 
Francoise, to Dominique, a young man who was said 
to be not overfond of work, but whom never a woman 
for three leagues of the country around could look at 
without sparkling eyes, such a well-favored young 
fellow was he. 

That mill of Father Merlier's was truly a very pleas- 
ant spot. It was situated right in the heart of Ro- 
creuse, at the place where the main road makes a sharp 
bend. The village has but a single street, bordered 
on either side by a row of low, whitened cottages, but 
just there, where the road curves, there are broad 
stretches of meadow-land, and huge trees, which fol- 
low the course of the Morelle, cover the low grounds 

2x9 



220 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



of the valley with a most delicious shade. All Lor- 
raine has no more charming bit of nature to show. 
To right and left dense forests, great monarchs of the 
wood, centuries old, rise from the gentle slopes and fill 
the horizon with a sea of waving, trembling verdure, 
while away toward the south extends the plain, of 
wondrous fertility and checkered almost to infinity 
with its small inclosures, divided off from one another 
by their live hedges. But what makes the crowning 
glory of Rocreuse is the coolness of this verdurous 
nook, even in the hottest days of July and August. 
The Morelle comes down from the woods of Gagny, 
and it would seem as if it gathered to itself on the way 
all the delicious freshness of the foliage beneath which 
it glides for many a league; it brings down with it the 
murmuring sounds, the glacial, solemn shadows of the 
forest. And that is not .the only source of coolness ; 
there are running waters of all sorts singing among the 
copses; one cannot take a step without coming on a 
gushing spring, and as he makes his way along the 
narrow paths seems to be treading above subterrene 
lakes that seek the air and sunshine through the moss 
above and profit by every smallest crevice, at the roots 
of trees or among the chinks and crannies of the 
rocks, to burst forth in fountains of crystalline clear- 
ness. So numerous and so loud are the whispering 
voices of these streams that they silence the song of 
the bullfinches. It is as if one were in an enchanted 
park, with cascades falling and flashing on every side. 

The meadows below are never athirst. The shad- 
ows beneath the gigantic chestnut trees are of inky 
blackness, and along the edges of the fields long rows 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL, 



22} 



of poplars stand like walls of rustling foliage, There 
is a double avenue of huge plane trees ascending across 
the fields toward the ancient castle of Gagny, now 
gone to rack and ruin. In this region, where drought 
is never known, vegetation of all kinds is wonderfully 
rank ; it is like a flower garden down there in the low 
ground between those two wooded hills, a natural 
garden, where the lawns are broad meadows and the 
giant trees represent colossal beds. When the noon- 
day sun pours down his scorching rays the shadows 
lie blue upon the ground, vegetation slumbers in the 
genial warmth, while every now and then a breath of 
almost icy coldness rustles the foliage. 

Such was the spot where Father Merlier's mill enliv- 
ened nature run riot with its cheerful clack. The 
building itself, constructed of wood and plaster, 
looked as if it might be coeval with our planet. Its 
foundations were in part laved by the Morelle, which 
here expands into a clear pool. A dam, a few feet 
in height, afforded sufficient head of water to drive the 
old wheel, which creaked and groaned as it revolved, 
with the asthmatic wheezing of a faithful servant who 
has grown old in her place. Whenever Father Merlier 
was advised to change it, he would shake his head and 
say that like as not a young wheel would be lazier and 
not so well acquainted with its duties, and then he 
would set to work and patch up the old one with any- 
thing that came to hand, old hogshead-staves, bits of 
rusty iron, zinc, or lead. The old wheel only seemed 
the gayer for it, with its odd, round countenance, all 
plumed and feathered with tufts of moss and grass, 
and when the water poured over it in a silvery tide its 



222 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



gaunt black skeleton was decked out with a gorgeous 
display of pearls and diamonds. 

That portion of the mill which was bathed by the 
Morelle had something of the look of a Moorish arch 
that had been dropped down there by chance. A 
good half of the structure was built on piles; the 
water came in under the floor, and there were deep 
holes, famous throughout the whole country for the 
eels and the huge crawfish that were to be caught 
there. Below the fall the pool was as clear as a look, 
ing-glass, and when it was not clouded by foam from 
the wheel one could see great fish swimming about 
in it with the slow, majestic movements of a fleet. 
There was a broken stairway leading down to the 
stream, near a stake to which a boat was fastened, and 
over the wheel was a gallery of wood. Such windows 
as there were were arranged without any attempt at 
order. The whole was a quaint conglomeration of 
nooks and corners, bits of wall, additions made here 
and there as afterthoughts, beams and roofs, that gave 
the mill the aspect of an old dismantled citadel, but 
ivy and all sorts of creeping plants had grown luxuri- 
antly and kindly covered up such crevices as were too 
unsightly, casting a mantle of green over the old dwell- 
ing. Young ladies who passed that way used to srtop 
and sketch Father Merlier's mill in their albums. 

The side of the house that faced tfye road was less 
irregular. A gateway in stone afforded access to the 
principal courtyard, on the right and left hand of 
which were sheds and stables. Beside a well stood an 
immense elm that threw its shade over half the court. 
At the further end, opposite the gate, stood the 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



house, surmounted by a dovecote, the four window: 
of its first floor symmetrically aligned. The only man 
ifestation of pride that Father Merlier ever allowed 
himself was to paint this facade every ten years. It 
had just been freshly whitened at the time of our 
story, and dazzled the eyes of all the village when the 
sun lighted it up in the middle of the day. 

For twenty years had Father Merlier been mayor 
of Rocreuse. He was held in great consideration on 
account of his fortune ; he was supposed to be worth 
something like eighty thousand francs, the result of 
patient saving. When he married Madeleine Guilliard, 
who brought him the mill as her dowry, his entire capi- 
tal lay in his two strong arms, but Madeleine had never 
repented of her choice, so manfully had he conducted 
their joint affairs. Now his wife was dead, and he was 
left a widower with his daughter Francoise. Doubtless 
he might have sat himself down to take his rest and suf- 
fered the old mill-wheel to sleep among its moss, but 
he would have found the occupation too irksome and 
the house would have seemed dead to him, so he kept 
on working still, for the pleasure of it. In those days 
Father Merlier was a tall old man, with a long, un- 
speaking face, on which a laugh was never seen, but 
beneath which there lay, none the less, a large fund of 
good-humor. He had been elected mayor on account 
of his money, and also for the impressive air that he 
knew how to assume when- it devolved on him to marry 
a couple. 

Francoise Merlier had just completed her eighteenth 
year. She was small, and for that reason was not 
accounted one of the beauties of the country. Until 



224 



THE A TTACK ON THE MILL. 



she reached the age of fifteen she was even homely-, 
the good folks of Rocreuse could not see how it was 
that the daughter of Father and Mother Merlier, such 
a hale, vigorous couple, had such a hard time of it in 
getting her growth. When she was fifteen, however, 
though still remaining delicate, a change came over her 
and she took on the prettiest little face imaginable. 
She had black eyes, black hair, and was red as a rose 
withal; her little mouth was always graced with a 
charming smile, there were delicious dimples in her 
cheeks, and a crown of sunshine seemed to be ever 
resting on her fair, candid forehead. Although small 
as girls went in that region she was far from being 
slender ; she might not have been able to raise a sack of 
wheat to her shoulder, but she became quite plump 
with age and gave promise of becoming eventually 
as well-rounded and appetizing as a partridge. 
Her father's habits of taciturnity had made her 
reflective while yet a young girl; if she always had a 
smile on her lips it was in order to give pleasure to 
others. Her natural disposition was serious. 

As was no more than to be expected, she had every 
young man in the countryside at her heels as a suitor, 
more even for her money than for her attractiveness, 
and she had made a choice at last, a choice that had 
been the talk and scandal of the entire neighborhood. 
On the other side of the Morelle lived a strapping young 
fellow who went by the name of Dominique Penquer. 
He was not to the manor born; ten years previously 
he had come to Rocreuse from Belgium to receive the 
inheritance of an uncle who had owned a small prop- 
erty on the very borders of the forest of Gagny, just 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 225 



facing the mill and distant from it only a few musket- 
shots. His object in coming was to sell the property, 
so he said, and return to his own home again ; but he 
must have found the land to his liking for be made no 
move to go away. He was seen cultivating his bit of 
a field and gathering the few vegetables that afforded 
him an existence. He hunted, he fished ; more than 
once he was near coming in contact with the law 
through the intervention of the keepers. This inde- 
pendent way of living, of which the peasants could not 
very clearly see the resources, had in the end given 
him a bad name. He was vaguely looked on as noth- 
ing better than a poacher. At all events he was lazy, 
for he was frequently found sleeping in the grass at 
hours when he should have been at work. Then, too, 
the hut in which he lived, in the shade of the last 
trees of the forest, did not seem like the abode of an 
honest young man ; the old women would not have 
been surprised at any time to hear that he was on 
friendly terms with the wolves in the ruins of Gagny. 
Still, the young girls would now and then venture to 
stand up for him, for he was altogether a splendid 
specimen of manhood, was this individual of doubtful 
antecedents, tall and straight as a young poplar, with 
a milk-white skin and ruddy hair and beard that 
seemed to be of gold when the sun shone on them. 
Now one fine morning it came to pass that Francoise 
told Father Merlier that she loved Dominique and that 
never, never would she consent to marry any other 
young man. 

It may be imagined what a knockdown blow it was 
that Father Merlier received that day! As was his 



226 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



wont, he said never a word; his countenance wore its 
usual reflective look, only the fun that used to bubble 
up from within no longer shone in his eyes. Fran- 
coise, too, was very serious, and for a week father and 
daughter scarcely spoke to each other. What troubled 
Father Merlier was to know how that rascal of a 
poacher had succeeded in bewitching his daughter. 
Dominique had never shown himself at the mill. The 
miller played the spy a little, and was rewarded by 
catching sight of the gallant, on the other side of the 
Morelle, lying among the grass and pretending to be 
asleep. Francoise could see him from her chamber 
window. The thing was clear enough ; they had been 
making sheep's eyes at each other over the old mill- 
wheel, and so had fallen in love. 

A week slipped by ; Francoise became more and 
more serious. Father Merlier still continued to say 
nothing. Then, one evening, of his own accord, he 
brought Dominique to the house, without a word, 
Francoise was just setting the table.. She made no 
demonstration of surprise; all she did was to add an- 
other plate, but her laugh had come back to her and 
the little dimples appeared again upon her cheeks. 
Father Merlier had gone that morning to look for 
Dominique at his hut on the edge of the forest, and 
there the two men had had a conference, with closed 
doors and windows, that lasted three hours. No one 
ever knew what they said to each other; the only 
thing certain is that when Father Merlier left the hut 
he already treated Dominique as a son. Doubtless 
the old man had discovered that he whom he had 
gone to visit was a worthy young man, even though 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



22] 



he did lie in the grass to gain the love of young 
girls. 

All Rocreuse was up in arms. The women gath- 
ered at their doors and could not find words strong 
enough to characterize Father Merlier's folly in thus 
receiving a ne'er-do-well into his family. He let them 
talk. Perhaps he thought of his own marriage. 
Neither had he possessed a penny to his name at the 
time when he married Madeleine and her mill, and yet 
that had not prevented him from being a good husband 
to her. Moreover Dominique put an end to their 
tittle-tattle by setting to work in such strenuous fash- 
ion that all the countryside was amazed. It so hap- 
pened just then that the boy of the mill drew an 
unlucky number and had to go for a soldier, and 
Dominique would not hear to their engaging another. 
He lifted sacks, drove the cart, wrestled with the old 
wheel when it took an obstinate fit and refused to turn, 
and all so pluckily and cheerfully that people came 
from far and near merely for the pleasure of seeing 
him. Father Merlier laughed his silent laugh. He 
was highly elated that he had read the youngster 
aright. There is nothing like love to hearten up 
young men. 

In the midst of all that laborious toil Francoise 
and Dominique fairly worshiped each other. They 
had not much to say, but their tender smiles conveyed 
a world of meaning. Father Merlier had not said a 
word thus far on the subject of their marriage, and 
they had both respected his silence, waiting until the 
old man should see fit to give expression to his will. 
At last, one day along toward the middle of July, he 



228 THE A TTACK ON THE MILL. 



had had three tables laid in the courtyard, in the shade 
of the big elm, and had invited his friends of Rocreuse 
to come that afternoon and drink a glass of wine with 
him. When the courtyard was filled with people and 
every one there had a full glass in his hand, Father 
Merlier raised his own high above his head and said: 

"I have the pleasure of announcing to you that 
Franyoise and this stripling will be married in a month 
from now, on Saint Louis' fete-day." 

Then there was a universal touching of glasses, 
attended by a tremendous uproar ; every one was laugh- 
ing. But Father Merlier, raising his voice above the 
din, again spoke: 

"Dominique, kiss your wife that is to be. It is no 
more than customary.' 9 

And they kissed, very red in the face, both of them, 
while the company laughed louder still. It was a 
regular fete ; they emptied a small cask. Then, when 
only the intimate friends of the house remained, con- 
versation went on in a calmer strain. Night had 
fallen, a starlit night and very clear. Dominique and 
Franchise sat on a bench, side by side, and said noth- 
ing. An old peasant spoke of the war that the em- 
peror had declared against Prussia. All the lads of the 
village were already gone off to the army. Troops 
had passed through the place only the night before. 
There were going to be hard knocks. 

"Bah!" said Father Merlier, with the selfishness of 
a man who is quite happy, "Dominique is a foreigner, 
he won't have to go — and if the Prussians come this 
way, he will be here to defend his wife." 

The idea of the Prussians coming there seemed to 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 229 



the company an exceedingly good joke. The army 
would give them one good, conscientious thrashing 
and the affair would be quickly ended. 

"I have seen them, I have seen them,'* the old 
peasant repeated in a low voice. 

There was silence for a little, then they all touched 
glasses once again. Frangoise and Dominique had 
heard nothing; they had managed to clasp hands 
behind the bench in such a way as not to be seen by the 
others, and this condition of affairs seemed so beatific 
to them that they sat there, mute, their gaze lost in the 
darkness of the night. 

What a magnificent, balmy night! The village lay 
slumbering on either side of the white road as peace- 
fully as a little child. The deep silence was undis- 
turbed save by the occasional crow of a cock in some 
distant barnyard, acting on a mistaken impression that 
dawn was at hand. Perfumed breaths of air, like 
long-drawn sighs, almost, came down from the great 
woods that lay around and above, sweeping softly over 
the roofs, as if caressing them. The meadows, with 
their black intensity of shadow, took on a dim, myste- 
rious majesty of their own, while all the springs, all 
the brooks and water courses that gurgled and trickled 
in the darkness, might have been taken for the cool 
and rhythmical breathing of the sleeping country. 
Every now and then the old dozing mill-wheel, 
like a watchdog that barks uneasily in his slumber, 
seemed to be dreaming as if it were endowed with 
some strange form of life; it creaked, it groaned, it 
talked to itself, rocked by the fall of the Morelle, 
whose current gave forth the deep, sustained music of 



2 JO THE ATTACK OX THE MILL. 

an organ pipe. Never was there a more charming or 
happier nook, never did more entire or deeper peace 
come down to cover it. 

II 

One month later to a day, on the eve of the fete of 
Saint Louis, Rocreuse was in a state of alarm and dis- 
may. The Prussians had beaten the emperor and 
were advancing on the village by forced marches. For 
a week past people passing along the road had brought 
tidings of the enemy: "They are at Lormieres, they 
are at Novelles;" and by dint of hearing so many 
stories of the rapidity of their advance, Rocreuse 
woke up every morning in the full expectation of see- 
ing them swarming down out of Gagny wood. They 
did not come, however, and that only served to make 
the affright the greater. They would certainly fall 
upon the village in the night-time, and put every soul 
to the sword. 

There had been an alarm the night before, a little 
before daybreak. The inhabitants had been aroused 
by a great noise of men tramping upon the road. 
The women were already throwing themselves upon 
their knees and making the sign of the cross when 
some one, to whom it happily occurred to peep through 
a half-opened window, caught sight of red trousers. 
It was a French detachment. The captain had forth- 
with asked for the mayor, and, after a long conversa- 
tion with Father Merlier, had remained at the mill. 

The sun rose bright and clear that morning, giving 
promise of a warm day. There was a golden light 
floating over the woodland, while in the low grounds 



THE ATTACK OX THE MILL. 231 



white mists were rising from the meadows. The 
pretty village, so neat and trim, awoke in the cool 
dawning, and the country, with its stream and its 
fountains, was as gracious as a freshly plucked bou- 
quet. But the beauty of. the day brought gladness to 
the face of no one; the villagers had watched the 
captain and seen him circle round and round the old 
mill, examine the adjacent houses, then pass to the 
other bank of the Morelle and from thence scan the 
country with a field-glass ; Father Merlier, who ac- 
companied him, appeared to be giving explanations. 
After that the captain had posted some of his men 
behind walls, behind trees, or in hollows. The main 
body of the detachment had encamped in the court- 
yard of the mill. So there was going to be a fight, 
then? And when Father Merlier returned, they ques- 
tioned him. He spoke no word, but slowly and sor- 
rowfully nodded his head. Yes, there was going to 
be a fight. 

Frangoise and Dominique were there in the court- 
yard, watching him. He finally took his pipe from 
his lips and gave utterance to these few w r ords: 

"Ah! my poor children, I shall not be able to 
marry you to-day ! " 

Dominique, with lips tight set and an angry frown 
upon his forehead, raised himself on tiptoe from time 
to time and stood with eyes bent on Gagny wood, as if 
he would have been glad to see the Prussians appear 
and end the suspense they were in. Frangoise, whose 
face was grave and very pale, was constantly passing 
back and forth, supplying the needs of the soldiers. 
They were preparing their soup in_ a corner of the 



2 3 2 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



courtyard, joking and chaffing one another while await- 
ing their meal. 

The captain appeared to be highly pleased. He 
had visited the chambers and the great hall of the 
mill that looked out on the stream. Now, seated 
beside the well, he was conversing with Father 
Merlier. 

"You have a regular fortress here," he was saying. 
4 'We shall have no trouble in holding it until evening. 
The bandits are late; they ought to be hereby this 
time. " 

The miller looked very grave. He saw his beloved 
mill going up in flame and smoke, but uttered no word 
of remonstrance or complaint, considering that it 
would be useless. He only opened his mouth to say: 

"You ought to take steps to hide the boat; there is 
a hole behind the wheel fitted to hold it. Perhaps 
you may find it of use to you." 

The captain gave an order to one of his men. This 
captain was a tall, fine-looking man of about forty, with 
an agreeable expression of countenance. The sight of 
Dominique and Frangoise seemed to afford him much 
pleasure; he watched them as if he had forgotten all 
about the approaching conflict. He followed Fran- 
£oise with his eyes as she moved about the courtyard, 
and his manner showed clearly enough that he thought 
her charming. Then, turning to Dominique: 

"You are not with the army, I see, my boy?" he 
abruptly asked. 

"1 am a foreigner," the young man replied. 

The captain did not seem particularly pleased with 
the answer; he winked his eyes and smiled. Frao* 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



coise was doubtless a more agreeable companion than 
a musket would have been. Dominique, noticing his 
smile, made haste to add: 

"I am a foreigner, but I can lodge a rifle-bullet in 
an apple at five hundred yards. See, there's my 
rifle, behind you." 

"You may find use for it," the captain dryly an- 
swered. 

Francoise had drawn near; she was trembling a 
little, and Dominique, regardless of the bystanders, 
took and held firmly clasped in his own the two hands 
that she held forth to him, as if committing herself to 
his protection. The captain smiled again, but said 
nothing more. He remained seated, his sword be- 
tween his legs, his eyes fixed on space, apparently lost 
in dreamy reverie. 

It was ten o'clock. The heat was already oppress- 
ive. A deep silence prevailed. The soldiers had 
sat down in the shade of the sheds in the courtyard 
and begun to eat their soup. Not a sound came from 
the village, where the inhabitants had all barricaded 
their houses, doors and windows. A dog, abandoned 
by his master, howled mournfully upon the road. 
From the woods and the near by meadows, that lay 
fainting in the heat, came a long-drawn, whispering, 
soughing sound, produced by the union of what wan- 
dering breaths of air there were. A cuckoo sang. 
Then the silence became deeper still. 

And all at once, upon that lazy, sleepy air, a shot 
rang out. The captain rose quickly to his feet, the 
soldiers left their half-emptied plates. In a few sec- 
onds all were at their posts; the mill was occupied 



234 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



from top to bottom. And yet the captain, who had 
gone out through the gate, saw nothing ; to right and 
left the road stretched away, desolate and blindingly 
white in the fierce sunshine. A second report was 
heard, and still nothing to be seen, not even so much 
as a shadow; but just as he was turning to re-enter he 
chanced to look over toward Gagny and there beheld 
a little puff of smoke, floating away on the tranquil 
air, like thistle-down. The deep peace of the forest 
was apparently unbroken. 

"The rascals have occupied the wood," the officer 
murmured. "They know we are here." 

Then the firing went on, and became more and 
more continuous, between the French soldiers posted 
about the mill and the Prussians concealed among the 
trees. The bullets whistled over the Morelle without 
doing any mischief on either side. The firing was 
irregular; every bush seemed to have its marksman, 
and nothing was to be seen save those bluish smoke 
wreaths that hung for a moment on the wind before 
they vanished. It lasted thus for nearly two hours. 
The officer hummed a tune with a careless air. Fran- 
coise and Dominique, who had remained in the court- 
yard, raised themselves to look out over a low wall. 
They were more particularly interested in a little soldier 
who had his post on the bank of the Morelle, behind 
the hull of an old boat; he would lie face downward 
on the ground, watch his chance, deliver his fire, then 
slip back into a ditch a few steps in his rear to reload, 
and his movements were so comical, he displayed such 
cunning and activity, that it was difficult for any one 
watching him to refrain from smiling. . He must have 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 235 

caught sight of a Prussian, for he rose quickly and 
brought his piece to the shoulder, but before he could 
discharge it he uttered a loud cry, whirled completely* 
around in his tracks and fell backward into the ditch, 
where for an instant his legs moved convulsively, just 
as the claws of a fowl do when it is beheaded. The 
little soldier had received a bullet directly through 
his heart. It was the first casualty of the day. Fran- 
coise instinctively seized Dominique's hand and held 
it tight in a convulsive grasp. 

"Come away from there, " said the captain. "The 
bullets reach us here." 

As if to confirm his words a slight, sharp sound was 
heard up in the old elm, and the end of a branch came 
to the ground, turning over and over as it fell, but the 
two young people never stirred, riveted to the spot as 
they were by the interest of the spectacle. On the 
edge of the wood a Prussian had suddenly emerged 
from behind a tree, as an actor comes upon the stage 
from the wings, beating the air with his arms and. fall- 
ing over upon his back. And beyond that there was 
no movement ; the two dead men appeared to be 
sleeping in the bright sunshine; there was not a soul 
to be seen in the fields on which the heat lay heavy. 
Even the sharp rattle of the musketry had ceased. 
Only the Morelle kept on whispering to itself with 
its low, musical murmur. 

Father Merlier looked at the captain with, an aston- 
ished air, as if to inquire whether that were the end 
of it. 

"Here comes their attack," the officer murmured. 
•'Look out for yourself!. Don't stand there!" 



*3 6 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL 

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a 
terrible discharge of musketry ensued. The great elm 
was riddled, its leaves came eddying down as thick as 
snowflakes. Fortunately the Prussians had aimed too 
high. Dominique dragged, almost carried Francoise 
from the spot, while Father Merlier followed them, 
shouting: 

"Get into the small cellar, the walls are thicker 

there/' 

But they paid no attention to him; they made their 
way to the main hall, where ten or a dozen soldiers 
were silently waiting, watching events outside through 
the chinks of the closed shutters. The captain was 
left alone in the courtyard, where he sheltered himself 
behind the low wall, while the furious fire was main- 
tained uninterruptedly. The soldiers whom he had 
posted outside only yielded their ground inch by inch ; 
they came crawling in, however, one after another, 
as the enemy dislodged them from their positions. 
Their instructions were to gain all the time they could, 
taking care not to show themselves, in order that the 
Prussians might remain in ignorance of the force they 
had opposed to them. Another hour passed, and as a 
sergeant came in, reporting that there were now only 
tw r o or three men left outside, the officer took his 
watch from his pocket, murmuring: 

"Half-past two. Come, we must hold out for four 
hours yet/' 

He caused the great gate of the courtyard to be 
tightly secured and everything was made ready for an 
energetic defense. The Prussians were on the other 
side of the Morelle, consequently there was no reason 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



2 37 



to fear an assault at the moment. There was a bridge, 
indeed, a mile and a quarter away, but they were prob- 
ably unaware of its existence, and it was hardly to be 
supposed that they would attempt to cross the stream by 
fording. The officer therefore simply caused the road 
to be watched ; the attack, when it came, was to be 
looked for from the direction of the fields. 

The firing had ceased again. The mill appeared to 
lie there in the sunlight, void of all life. Not a shut- 
ter was open, not a sound came from within. Gradu- 
ally, however, the Prussians began to show themselves 
at the edge of Gagny wood. Heads were protruded 
here and there ; they seemed to be mustering up their 
courage. Several of the soldiers within the mill 
brought up their pieces to an aim, but the captain 
shouted: 

"No, no; not yet; wait. Let them come nearer." 

They displayed a great deal of prudence in their 
advance, looking at the mill with a distrustful air; 
they seemed hardly to know what to make of the old 
structure, so lifeless and gloomy, with its curtains of 
ivy. Still, they kept on advancing. When there were 
fifty of them or so in the open, directly opposite, the 
officer uttered one word : 

"Now!" 

S A crashing, tearing discharge burst from the posi- 
tion, succeeded by an irregular, dropping fire. Fran- 
coise, trembling violently, involuntarily raised her 
hands to her ears. Dominique, from his position 
behind the soldiers, peered out upon the field, and 
when the smoke drifted away a little, counted three 
Prussians extended on their backs in the middle of the 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL, 



meadow. The others had sought shelter among the 
willows and the poplars. And then commenced the 
siege. 

For more than an hour the mill was riddled with 
bullets; they beat and rattled on its old walls like hail. 
The noise they made was plainly audible as they 
struck the stonework, were flattened, and fell back into 
the water; they buried themselves in the woodwork 
with a dull thud. Occasionally a creaking sound 
would announce that the wheel had been hit. Within 
the building the soldiers husbanded their ammunition, 
firing only when they could see something to aim at. 
The captain kept consulting his watch every few min- 
utes, and as a ball split one of the shutters in halves 
and then lodged in the ceiling: 

"Four o'clock," he murmured. "We shall never 
be able to hold the position." 

The old mill, in truth, was gradually going to 
pieces beneath that terrific fire. A shutter that had 
been perforated again and again until it looked like a 
piece of lace, fell off its hinges into the water and had 
to be replaced by a mattress. Every moment, almost, 
Father Merlier exposed himself to the fire in order to 
take account of the damage, sustained by his poor 
wheel, every wound of which was like a bullet in his 
own heart. Its period of usefulness was ended this 
time, for certain; he would never be able to patch it 
up again. Dominique had besought Francoise to 
retire to a place of safety, but she was determined to 
remain with him; she had taken a seat behind a great 
oaken clothes-press, which afforded her protection. A 
ball struck the press, however, the sides of which gave 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



-39 



out a dull, hollow sound, whereupon Dominique sta- 
tioned himself in front of Francoise. He had as yet 
taken no part in the firing, although he had his rifle in 
his hand ; the soldiers occupied the whole breadth of 
the windows, so that he could not get near them. At 
every discharge the floor trembled. 

"Look out! look out!" the captain suddenly 
shouted. 

He had just descried a dark mass emerging from 
the wood. As soon as they gained the open they set 
up a telling platoon fire. It struck the mill like a tor- 
nado. Another shutter parted company and the bul- 
lets came whistling in through the yawning aperture. 
Two soldiers rolled upon the floor; one lay where he 
fell and never moved a limb; his comrades pushed 
him up against the wall because he was in their way. 
The other writhed and twisted, beseeching some one 
to end his agony, but no one had ears for the poor 
wretch ; the bullets were still pouring in and every one 
was looking out for himself and searching for a loop- 
hole whence he might answer the enemy's fire. A 
third soldier was wounded; that one said not a word, 
but with staring, haggard eyes sank down beneath a 
table. Francoise, horror-stricken by the dreadful 
spectacle of the dead and dying men, mechanically 
pushed away her chair and seated herself on the floor, 
against the wall; it seemed to her that she would 
be smaller there and less exposed. In the meantime 
men had gone and secured all the mattresses in the 
house ; the opening of the window was partially closed 
again. The hall was filled with debris of every de- 
scription, broken weapons, dislocated furniture. 



240 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



"Five o'clock," said the captain. "Stand fast, 
boys. They are going to make an attempt to pass the 
stream." 

Just then Fran<poise gave a shriek. A bullet had 
struck the floor and, rebounding, grazed her forehead 
on the ricochet. A few drops of blood appeared. 
Dominique looked at her, then went to the window 
and fired his first shot, and from that time kept on 
firing uninterruptedly. He kept^on loading and dis- 
charging his piece mechanically, paying no attention 
to what was passing at his side, only pausing from 
time to time to cast a look at Frangoise. He did not 
fire hurriedly or at random, moreover, but took delib- 
erate aim. As the captain had predicted, the Prus- 
sians were skirting the belt of poplars and attempting 
the passage of the Morelle, but each time that one of 
them showed himself he fell with one of Dominique's 
bullets in his brain. The captain, who was watching 
the performance, was amazed; he complimented the 
young man, telling him that he would like to have 
many more marksmen of his skill. Dominique did 
not hear a word he said. A ball struck him in the 
shoulder, another raised a contusion on his arm. And 
still he kept on firing. 

There were two more deaths. The mattresses were 
torn to shreds and no longer availed to stop the win- 
dows. The last volley that was poured in seemed as 
if it would carry away the mill bodily, so fierce it was. 
The position was no longer tenable. Still, the officer 
kept repeating: 

"Stand fast. Another half-hour yet." 

He was counting the minutes, one by one, now. He 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



241 



had promised his commanders that he would hold 
the enemy there until nightfall, and he would not 
budge a hair's-breadth before the moment that he 
had fixed on for his withdrawal. He maintained his 
pleasant air of good-humor, smiling at Frangoise by 
way of reassuring her. He had picked up the musket 
of one of the dead soldiers and was firing away with 
the rest. 

There were but four soldiers left in the room. The 
Prussians were showing themselves en masse on the 
other bank of the Morelle, and it was evident that they 
might now pass the stream at any moment. A few 
moments more elapsed ; the captain was as determined 
as ever and would not give the order to retreat, when 
a sergeant came running into the room, saying: 

* 4 They are on the road; they are going to take us 
in rear." 

The Prussians must have discovered the bridge. 
The captain drew out his watch again. 

"Five minutes more," he said. "They won't be 
here within five minutes." 

Then exactly at six o'clock, he at last withdrew his 
men through a little postern that opened on a narrow 
lane, whence they threw themselves into the ditch and 
in that way reached the forest of Sauval. The captain 
took leave of Father Merlier with much politeness, 
apologizing profusely for the trouble he had caused. 
He even added: 

"Try to keep them occupied for a while. We shall 
return." 

While this was occurring Dominique had remained 
alone in the hall. He was still firing away, hearing 



242 THE ATTACK OX THE MILL. 



nothing, conscious of nothing; his sole thought was to 
defend Francoise. The soldiers were all gone and he 
had not the remotest idea of the fact; he aimed and 
brought down his man at every shot. All at once 
there was a great tumult. The Prussians had entered 
the courtyard from the rear. He fired his last shot, 
and they fell upon him with his weapon still smoking 
in his hand. 

It required four men to hold him; the rest of them 
swarmed about him, vociferating like madmen in their 
horrible dialect. - Francoise rushed forward to inter- 
cede with her prayers. They were on the point of 
killing him on the spot, but an officer came in and 
made them turn the prisoner over to him. After ex- 
changing a few words in German with his men he 
turned to Dominique and said to him roughly, in very 
good French: 

"You will be shot in two hours from now." 

Ill 

It was the standing regulation, laid down by the 
German staff, that every Frenchman, not belonging to 
the regular army, taken with arms in his hands, should 
be shot. Even the compagnies francJies were not 
recognized as belligerents. It was the intention of 
the Germans, in making such terrible examples of the 
peasants who attempted to defend their firesides, to 
prevent a rising en masse, which they greatly dreaded. 

The officer, a tall, spare man* about fifty years old, 
subjected Dominique to a brief examination. Al- 
though he spoke French fluently, he was unmistakably 
Prussian in the stiffness of his manner. 



THE ATTACK OX THE MILL. 



"You are a native of this country?" 
"No, I am a Belgian." 

"Why did you take up arms? These are matters 
with which you have no concern." 

Dominique made no reply. At this moment the 
officer caught sight of Francoise where she stood lis- 
tening, very pale; her slight wound had marked her 
white forehead with a streak of red. He looked from 
one to the other of the young people and appeared to 
understand the situation ; he merely added : 

"You do not deny having fired on my men?" 

"I fired as long as I was able to do so," Dominique 
quietly replied. 

The admission was scarcely necessary, for he was 
black with powder, wet with sweat, and the blood 
from the wound in his shoulder had trickled down and 
stained his clothing. 

"Very well," the officer repeated. "You will be 
shot two hours hence." 

Francoise uttered no cry. She clasped her hands 
and raised them above her head in a gesture of mute 
despair. Her action was not lost upon the officer. 
Two soldiers had led Dominique away to an adjacent 
room where their orders were to guard him and not 
lose sight of him. The girl had sunk upon a chair; 
her strength had failed her, her legs refused to support 
her; she was denied the relief of tears, it seemed as if 
her emotion was strangling her. The officer continued 
to examine her attentively and finally addressed her: 

"Is that young man your brother?" he inquired. 

She shook her head in negation. He was as rigid 
and unbending as ever> without the suspicion of a 



244 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL, 



smile on his face. Then, after an interval of silence, 
he spoke again : 

"Has he been living in the neighborhood long?" 

She answered yes, by another motion of the head. 

"Then he must be well acquainted with the woods 
about here?" 

This time she made a verbal answer. "Yes, sir," 
she said, looking at him with some astonishment. 

He said nothing more, but turned on his heel, re- 
questing that the mayor of the village should be brought 
before him. But Frangoise had risen from her chair, a 
faint tinge of color on her cheeks, believing that she 
had caught the significance of his questions, and with 
renewed hope she ran off to look for her father. 

As soon as the firing had ceased Father Merlier had 
hurriedly descended by the wooden gallery to have a 
look at his wheel. He adored his daughter and had 
a strong feeling of affection for Dominique, his son- 
in-law who was to be; but his wheel also occupied a 
large space in his heart. Now that the two little ones, 
as he called them, had come safe and sound out of the 
fray, he thought of his other love, which must have 
suffered sorely, poor thing, and bending over the great 
wooden skeleton he was scrutinizing its wounds with 
a heartbroken air. Five of the buckets were reduced 
to splinters, the central framework was honeycombed. 
He was thrusting his fingers into the cavities that the 
bullets had made to see how deep they were, and re- 
flecting how he was ever to repair all that damage. 
When Frangoise found him he was already plugging 
up the crevices with moss and such debris as he could 
lay hands on, 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



245 



"They are asking for you, father," said she. 

And at last she wept as she told him what she had 
just heard. Father Merlier shook his head. It was 
not customary to shoot people like that. He would 
have to look into the matter. And he re-entered the 
mill with his usual placid, silent air. When the officer 
made his demand for supplies for his men, he answered 
that the people of Rocreuse were not accustomed to 
be ridden roughshod and that nothing would be 
obtained from them through violence; he was willing 
to assume all the responsibility, but only on condition 
that he was allowed to act independently. The officer 
at first appeared to take umbrage at this easy way of 
viewing matters, but finally gave way before the old 
man's brief and distinct representations. As the 
latter was leaving the room the other recalled him 
to ask: 

" Those woods there, opposite, what do you call 
them?'* 

"The woods of Sauval." 

"And how far do they extend?" 

The miller looked him straight in the face. "I do 
not know," he replied. 

And he withdrew. An hour later the subvention 
in money and provisions that the officer had demanded 
was in the courtyard of the mill. Night was closing 
in; Francoise followed every movement of the soldiers 
with an anxious eye. She never once left the vicinity 
of the room in which Dominique was imprisoned. 
About seven o'clock she had a harrowing emotion; 
she saw the officer enter the prisoner's apartment and 
for a quarter of an hour heard their voices raised in 



246 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



violent discussion. The officer came to the door for 
a moment and gave an order in German which she did 
not understand, but when twelve men came and 
formed in the courtyard with shouldered muskets, she 
was seized with a fit of trembling and felt as if she 
should die. It was all over, then; the execution was 
about to take place. The twelve men remained there 
ten minutes; Dominique's voice kept rising higher and 
higher in a tone of vehement denial. Finally the 
officer came out, closing the door behind him with a 
vicious bang and saying: ^ 

"Very well; think it over. I give you until to- 
morrow morning." 
k And he ordered the twelve men to break ranks by a 
motion of his hand. Francoise was stupefied. Father 
Merlier, who had continued to puff away at his pipe 
while watching the platoon with a simple, curious air, 
came and took her by the arm with fatherly gentle- 
ness. He led her to her chamber. 

"Don't fret," he said to her; "try to get some 
sleep. To-morrow it will be light and we shall see 
more clearly." 

He locked the door behind him as he left the room. 
It was a fixed principle with him that women are good 
for nothing and that they spoil everything whenever 
they meddle in important matters Francoise did not 
retire to her couch, however; she remained a long 
time seated on her bed, listening to the various noises 
in the house. The German soldiers quartered in the 
courtyard were singing and laughing; they must have 
kept up their eating and drinking until eleven o'clock, 
for the riot never ceased for an instant Heavy foot- 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 247 



steps resounded from time to time through the mill 
itself, doubtless the tramp of the guards as they were 
relieved. What had most interest for her was the 
sounds that she could catch in the room that lay 
directly under her own ; several times she threw her- 
self prone upon the floor and applied her ear to the 
boards. That room was the one in which they had 
locked up Dominique. He must have been pacing 
the apartment, for she could hear for a long time his 
regular, cadenced tread passing from the wall to the 
window and back again ; then there was a deep 
silence; doubtless he had seated himself. The other 
sounds ceased, too; everything was still. When it 
seemed to her that the house was sunk in slumber she 
raised her window as ntJiselessly as possible and leaned 
out. 

Without, the night was serene and balmy. The 
slender crescent of the moon, which was just setting 
behind Sauval wood, cast a dim radiance over the 
landscape. The lengthening shadows of the great 
trees stretched far athwart the fields in bands of black- 
ness, while in such spots as were unobscured the grass 
appeared of a tender green, soft as velvet. But Fran- 
coise did not stop to consider the mysterious charm of 
night. She was scrutinizing the country and looking 
to see where the Germans had posted their sentinels. 
She could clearly distinguish their dark forms outlined 
along the course of the Morelle, There was only one 
stationed opposite the mill, on the far bank of the 
stream, by a willow whose branches dipped in the 
water. Francoise had an excellent view of him ; he 
was a tall young man, standing quite motionless with 



248 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL, 



face upturned toward the sky, with the meditative air 
of a shepherd. 

When she had completed her careful inspection of 
localities she returned and took her former seat upon 
the bed. She remained there an hour, absorbed in 
deep thought. Then she listened again ; there was 
not a breath to be heard in the house. She went 
again to the window and took another look outside, but 
one of the moon's horns was still hanging above the 
edge of the forest and this circumstance doubtless 
appeared to her unpropitious, for she resumed her 
waiting. At last the moment seemed to have arrived; 
the night was now quite dark; she could no longer dis- 
cern the sentinel opposite her, the landscape lay 
before her black as a sea of ink? She listened intently 
for a moment, then formed her resolve. Close beside 
her window was an iron ladder made of bars set in the 
wall, which ascended from the mill-wheel to the gran- 
ary at the top of the building and had formerly served 
the miller as a means of inspecting certain portions of 
the gearing, but a change having been made in the 
machinery the ladder had long since become lost to 
sight beneath the thick ivy that covered all that side 
of the mill. 

Frangoise bravely climbed over the balustrade of 
the little balcony in front of her window, grasped one 
of the iron bars and found herself suspended in space. 
She commenced the descent; her skirts were a great 
hindrance to her. Suddenly a stone became loosened 
from the wall and fell into the Morelle with a loud 
splash. She stopped, benumbed with fear, but reflec- 
tion quickly told her that the waterfall, with its contin* 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



249 



uous roar, was sufficient to deaden any noise that she 
could make, and then she descended more boldly, 
putting aside the ivy with her foot, testing each round 
of her ladder. When she was on a level with the room 
that had been converted into a prison for her lover 
she stopped. An unforeseen difficulty came near de- 
priving her of all her courage: the window of the 
room beneath was not situated directly under the win- 
dow of her bedroom, there was a wide space between 
it and the ladder, and when she extended her hand it 
only encountered the naked wall. 

Would she have to go back the way she came and 
leave her project unaccomplished? Her arms were 
growing very tired, the murmuring of the Morelle, far 
down below, was beginning to make her dizzy. Then 
she broke off bits of plaster from the wall and threw 
them against Djminique's window. He did not hear; 
perhaps he was asleep. Again she crumbled frag- 
ments from the wall, until the skin was peeled from 
her fingers. Her strength was exhausted, she felt that 
she was about to fall backward into the stream, when 
at last Dominique softly raised his sash. 

"It is I," she murmured. "Take me quick; I am 
about to fall." Leaning from the window he grasped 
her and drew her into the room, where she had a par- 
oxysm of weeping, stifling her sobs in order that she 
might not be heard. Then, by a supreme effort of the 
will, she overcame her emotion. 

" Are you guarded?" she asked, in a low voice. 

Dominique, not yet recovered from his stupefaction 
at seeing her there, made answer by simply pointing 
toward his door. There was a sound of snoring audi- 



250 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 

ble on the outside; it was evident that the sentinel 
had been overpowered by sleep and had thrown himself 
upon the floor close against the door in such a way 
that it could not be opened without arousing 
him. 

"You must fly," she continued earnestly. "I came 
here to bid you fly and say farewell." 

But he seemed not to hear her. He kept repeating: 
"What, is it you, is it you? Oh, what a fright you 
gave me! You might have killed yourself." He 
took her hands, he kissed them again and again. 
"How I love you, Francoise! You are as courageous 
as you are good. The only thing I feared was that I 
might die without seeing you again, but you are here, 
and now they may shoot me when they will. Let me 
but have a quarter of an hour with you and I am 
ready." 

He had gradually drawn her to him; her head was 
resting on his shoulder. The peril that was so near at 
hand brought them closer to each other, and they for- 
got everything in that long embrace. 

"Ah, Francoise!" Dominique went on in low, ca- 
ressing tones, "to-day is the fete of Saint Louis, our 
wedding-day, that we have been waiting for so long. 
Nothing has been able to keep us apart, for we are both 
here, faithful to our appointment, are we not? It is 
now our wedding morning." 

"Yes, yes," she repeated after him, "our wedding 
morning." 

They shuddered as they exchanged a kiss. But 
suddenly she tore herself from his arms; the terrible 
reality arose before her eyes. 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



"You must fly, you must fly, she murmured 
breathlessly, "There is not a moment to lose. 
And as he stretched out his arms in the darkness to 
draw her to him again, she went on in tender, be- 
seeching tones: "Oh! listen to me, I entreat you. If 
you die, I shall die. In an hour it will be daylight. 
Go, go at once; I command you to go." 

Then she rapidly explained her plan, to him. The 
iron ladder extended downward to the wheel ; once he 
had got that far he could climb down by means of the 
buckets and get into the boat, which was hidden in a 
recess. Then it would be an easy matter for him to 
reach the other bank of the stream and make his 
escape. 

"But are there no sentinels?" said he. 

"Only one, directly opposite here, at the foot of the 
first willow." 

"And if he sees me, if he gives the alarm?" 

Francoise shuddered. She placed in his hand a 
knife that she had brought down with .her. They 
were silent. 

"And your father—and you?" Dominique contin- 
ued. "But no, it is not to be thought of; I must not 
fly. When I am no longer here those soldiers are 
capable of murdering you. You do not know them. 
They offered to spare my life if I would guide them 
into Sauval forest. When they discover that I have 
escaped their fury will be such that they will be ready 
for every atrocity." 

The girl did not stop to argue the question. To all 
the considerations that he adduced, her one simple 
answer was: "Fly. For love of me, fly. If you love 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



me, Dominique, do not linger here a single moment 

longer." 

She promised that she would return to her bed- 
room; no one should know that she had assisted him. 
She concluded by folding him in her arms and smoth- 
ering him with kisses, in an extravagant outburst of 
passion. He was vanquished. He put only one more 
question to her: 
J "Will you swear to me that your father knows what 
/ you are doing and that he counsels my flight?" 

"It was my father who sent me to you," Francoise 
unhesitatingly replied. 

She told a falsehood. At that moment she had but 
one great, overmastering longing, to know that he was 
in safety, to escape from the horrible thought that the 
morning's sun was to be the signal for his death. 
When he should be far away, then calamity and evil 
might burst upon her head; whatever fate might be in 
store for her would seem endurable, so that only his 
life might be spared. Before and above all other con- 
siderations, the selfishness of her love demanded that 
he should be saved. 

"It is well," said Dominique; "I will do as you 
desire." 

No further word was spoken. Dominique went to 
the window to raise it again. But suddenly there was 
a noise that chilled them with affright. The door 
was shaken violently, they thought that some one was 
about to open it; it was evidently a party going the 
rounds who had heard their voices. They stood by 
the window, close locked in each other's arms, await- 
ing the event with anguish unspeakable. Again there 



THE ATTACK ON THE MtLL. 



came the rattling at the door, but it did not open. 
Each of them drew a deep sigh of relief; they saw 
how it was; the soldier lying across the threshold had 
turned over in his sleep. Silence was restored, in- 
deed, and presently the snoring commenced again, 
sounding like sweetest music in their ears. 

Dominique insisted that Francoise should return to 
her room first of all. He took her in his arms, he 
bade her a silent farewell, then assisted her to grasp 
the ladder, and himself climbed out on it in turn. He 
refused to descend a single step, however, until he 
knew that she was in her chamber. When she was 
safe in her room she let fall, in a voice scarce louder 
than the whispering breeze, the words: 

i{ Au revoir, I love you!" 

She kneeled at the window, resting her elbows on 
the sill, straining her eyes to follow Dominique. The. 
night was still very dark. She looked for the sentinel, 
but could see nothing of him; the willow alone was 
' dimly visible, a pale spot upon the surrounding black- 
ness. For a moment she heard the rustling of the ivy 
as Dominique descended, then the wheel creaked, and 
there was a faint plash which told that the young man 
had found the boat. This was confirmed when, a 
minute later, she descried the shadowy outline of the 
skiff on the gray bosom of the Morelle: Then a hor- 
rible feeling of dread seemed to clutch her by the 
throat and deprive her of power to breathe; she mo- 
mently expected to hear the sentry give the alarm ; 
every faintest sound among the dusky shadows seemed 
to her overwrought imagination to be the hurrying 
tread of soldiers, the clash of steel, the click of mus- 



*54 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL 



kef-locks. The seconds slipped by, however, the 
landscape still preserved its solemn peace. Dominique 
must have landed safely on the other bank, Frangoisr 
no longer had eyes for anything. The silence was 
oppressive. And she heard the sound of trampling 
feet, a hoarse cry, the dull thud of a heavy body fall- 
ing. This was followed by another silence, even 
deeper than that which had gone before. Then, as if 
conscious that Death had passed that way, she became 
very cold in presence of the impenetrable night. 

IV 

At early daybreak the repose of the mill was dis- 
turbed by the clamor of angry voices. Father Merlier 
had gone and unlocked Frangoise's door. She de- 
scended to the courtyard, pale and very calm, but 
when there could not repress a shudder upon being 
brought face to face with the body of a Prussian sol- 
dier that lay on the ground beside the well, stretched 
out upon a cloak. 

Soldiers were shouting and gesticulating angrily 
about the corpse. Several of them shook their fists 
threateningly in the direction of the village. The 
officer had just sent a summons to Father Merlier to 
appear before him in his capacity as mayor of the 
commune. 

"Here is one of our men," he said, in a voice that 
was almost unintelligible from anger, "who was found 
murdered on the bank of the stream. The murderer 
must be found, so that we may make a salutary exam- 
ple of him, and I shall expect you to co-operate with 
us in finding him/' 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



255 



" Whatever you desire/' the miller replied, with his 
customary impassiveness. f, Only it will be no easy 
matter." 

The officer stooped down and drew aside the skirt 
of the cloak which concealed the dead man's face, 
disclosing as he did so a frightful wound. The senti- 
nel had been struck in the throat and the weapon had 
not been withdrawn from the wound. It was a com- 
mon kitchen-knife, with a black handle. 

"Look at that knife," the officer said to Father 
Merlier. " Perhaps it will assist us in our investiga- 
tion." 

The old man had started violently, but recovered 
himself at once ; not a muscle of his face moved as he 
replied: 

"Every one about here has knives like that. Like 
enough your man was tired of fighting and did the 
business himself. Such things have happened before 
now." 

"Be silent!" the officer shouted in a fury. . "I 
don't know what it is that keeps me from applying the 
torch to the four corners of your village." 

His rage fortunately kept him from noticing the 
great change that had come over Fran<poise's coun- 
tenance. Her feelings had compelled her to sit down 
upon the stone bench beside the well. Do what she 
would she could not remove her eyes from the body 
that lay stretched upon the ground, almost at her feet. 
He had been a tall, handsome young man in life, very 
like Dominique in appearance, with blue eyes and 
golden hair. The resemblance went to her heart. 
She thought that perhaps the dead man had left be- 



25 6 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



hind him in his German home some loved one who 
would weep for his loss. And she recognized her 
knife in the dead man's throat. She had killed 
him. 

The officer, meantime, was talking of visiting Ro- 
creuse with some terrible punishment, when two or 
three soldiers came running in. The guard had just 
that moment ascertained the fact of Dominique's 
escape. The agitation caused by the tidings was ex- 
treme. The officer went to inspect the locality, 
looked out through the still open window, saw at once 
how the event had happened, and returned in a state 
of exasperation. 

Father Merlier appeared greatly vexed by Domi- 
nique's flight. "The idiot!" he murmured; "he has 
upset everything." 

Francoise heard him, and was in an agony of suffer- 
ing. Her father, moreover, had no suspicion of her 
complicity. He shook his head, saying to her in an 
undertone: 

"We are in a nice box, now!" 

"It was that scoundrel! it was that scoundrel!" 
cried the officer. "He has got away to the woods; 

but he must be found, or by , the village shall 

stand the consequences." And addressing himself to 
the miller: "Come, you must know where he is 
hiding?" 

Father Merlier laughed in his silent way and pointed 
to the wide stretch of wooded hills. 

"How can you expect to find a man in that wilder- 
ness?" he asked. 

"Oh! there are plenty of hiding-places that you are 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



257 



acquainted with. I am going to give you ten men; 
you shall act as guide to them." 

"I am perfectly willing. But it will take a week to 
beat up all the woods of the neighborhood." 

The old man's serenity enraged the officer; he saw, 
indeed, what a ridiculous proceeding such a hunt 
would be. It was at that moment that he caught 
sight of Francoise where she sat, pale and trembling, 
on her bench. His attention was aroused by the girl's 
anxious attitude. He was silent for a moment, glanc- 
ing suspiciously from father to daughter and back 
again. 

"Is not this man," he at last coarsely asked the old 
man, 1 'your daughter's lover?" 

Father Merlier's face became ashy pale, and he 
appeared for a moment as if about to throw himself on 
the officer and throttle him. He straightened himself 
up and made no reply. Francoise had hidden her 
face in her hands. 

"Yes, that is how it is," the Prussian continued; 
"you or your daughter have assisted him to escape. 
You are his accomplices. For the last time, will you 
surrender him?" 

The miller did not answer. He had turned away 
and was looking at the distant landscape with an air 
of supreme indifference, just as if the officer were talk- 
ing to some other person. That put the finishing 
touch to the latter's wrath. 

"Very well, then!" he declared, "you shall be shot 
in his stead." 

And again he ordered out the firing-party. Father 
Merlier was as imperturbable as ever. He scarcely 



25 8 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



did so much as shrug his shoulders; the whole drama 
appeared to him to be in very doubtful taste. He 
probably believed that they would not take a man's 
life in that unceremonious manner. When the pla- 
toon was on the ground he gravely said: 

"So, then, you are in earnest? — Very well, I am 
willing it should be so. If you feel you must have a 
victim, it may as well be I as another." 

Bat Francoise arose, greatly troubled, stammering: 
"Have mercy, good sir; do not harm my father. 
Take my life instead of his. It was I who assisted 
Dominique to escape; I am the only guilty one." 

"Hold your tongue, my girl," Father Merlier ex- 
claimed. "Why do you tell such a falsehood? She 
passed the night locked in her room, monsieur; I 
assure you that she does not speak the truth." 

"I am speaking the truth," the girl eagerly replied. 
"I left my room by the window, I incited Dominique 
to fly. It is the truth, the whole truth." 

The old man's face was very white. He could read 
in her eyes that she was not lying and her story terri- 
fied him. Ah, those children, those children ! how 
they spoiled everything, with their hearts and their 
feelings! Then, he said angrily: 

"She is crazy; do not listen to her. It is a lot of 
trash she is giving you. Come, let us get through with 
this business." 

She persisted in her protestations; she kneeled, she 
raised her clapped hands in supplication. The officer 
stood tranquilly by and watched the harrowing scene. 

"Men Dieu," he said at last, "I take your father 
because the other has escaped me. Bring me back 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. ^59 

the other man and your father shall have his 
liberty." 

She looked at him for a moment with eyes dilated 
by the horror which his proposal inspired in her. 

"It is dreadful," she murmured. "Where can I 
look for Dominique now? He is gone; I know noth- 
ing beyond that." 

"Well, make your choice between them; him or 
your father." 

"Oh! my God! how can I choose? Even if I 
knew where to find Dominique I could not choose. 
You are breaking my heart. I would rather die at 
once. Yes, it would be more quickly ended thus. 
Kill me, I beseech you, kill me " 

The officer finally became weary of this scene of 
despair and tears. He cried: 

"Enough of this! I wish to treat you kindly, I will 
give you two hours. If your lover is not here within 
two hours, your father shall pay the penalty that he has 
incurred." 

And he ordered Father Merlier away to the room 
that had served as a prison for Dominique. The old 
man asked for tobacco and began to smoke. There 
was no trace of emotion to be descried on his impas- 
sive face. Only when he was alone he wept two big 
tears that coursed slowly down his cheeks as he 
smoked his solitary pipe. His poor, dear child, what 
a fearful trial she was enduring! 

Francoise remained in the courtyard. Prussian 
soldiers passed back and forth, laughing. Some of 
them addressed her with coarse pleasantries which she 
did not understand, Her gaze was bent upon the door 



26o 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



through which her father had disappeared, and with a 
slow movement she raised her hand to her forehead, as 
if to keep it from bursting. The officer turned sharply 
and said to her: 

"You have two hours. Try to make good use of 
them." 

She had two hours. The words kept buzzing, buzz- 
ing in her ears. Then she went forth mechanically 
from the courtyard ; she walked straight ahead with no 
definite end. Where was she to go? what was she to 
do? She did not even endeavor to arrive at any de- 
cision, for she felt how utterly useless were her efforts. 
And yet she would have liked to see Dominique; they 
could have com-e to some understanding together, per- 
haps they might have hit on some plan to extricate 
them from their difficulties. And so, amid the confu- 
sion of her whirling thoughts, she took her way down- 
ward to the bank of the Morelle, which she crossed 
below the dam by means of some stepping-stones 
which were there. Proceeding onward, still involun- 
tarily, she came to the first willow, at the corner of 
the meadow, and stooping down, beheld a sight that 
made her grow deathly pale — a pool of blood. It was 
the spot. And*she followed the trace that Dominique 
had left in the tall grass; it was evident that he had 
run, for the footsteps that crossed the meadow in a 
diagonal line were separated from one another by wide 
intervals. Then, beyond that point, she lost the trace, 
but thought she had discovered it again in an adjoin- 
ing field. It led her onward to the border of the for- 
est, where tie trail came abruptly to an end. 

Though conscious of the futility of the proceeding. 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 261 



Francoise penetrated into the wood. It was a com* 
fort to her to be alone. She sat down for a moment, 
then, reflecting that time was passing, rose again to 
her feet. How long was it since she left the mill? 
Five minutes? or a half-hour? She had lost all idea of 
time. Perhaps Dominique had sought concealment in 
a clearing that she knew of, where they had gone 
together one afternoon and eaten hazel-nuts. She 
directed her steps toward the clearing, she searched it 
thoroughly. A blackbird flew out, whistling his sweet 
and melancholy note ; that was all. Then she thought 
that he might have taken refuge in a hollow among 
the rocks where he went sometimes with his gun to 
secure a bird or a rabbit, but the spot was untenanted. 
What use was there in looking for him? She would 
never find him, and little by little the desire to dis- 
cover his hiding-place became a passionate longing. 
She proceeded at a more rapid pace. The idea sud- 
denly took possession of her that he had climbed into 
a tree, and thenceforth she went along with eyes 
raised aloft and called him by name every fifteen or 
twenty steps, so that he might know she was near him. 
The cuckoos answered her; a breath of air that 
\ rustled the leaves made her think that he was there and 
was coming down to her. Once she even imagined 
that she saw him; she stopped, with a sense of suffo- 
cation, with a desire to run away. What was she to 
say to him? Had she come there to take him back 
with her and have him shot? Oh! no, she would not 
mention those things; she would tell him that he must 
fly, that he must not remain in the neighborhood. 
Then she thought of her father awaiting her return, 



262 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



and the reflection caused her most bitter anguish. 
She sank upon the turf, weeping hot tears, crying 

aloud: 

"My God! My God' why am I here!" 

It was a mad thing for her to have come. And as 
if seized with sudden panic, she ran hither and thither, 
she sought to make her way out of the forest. Three 
times she lost her way, and had begun to think she 
was never to see the mill again, when she came out into 
a meadow, directly opposite Rocreuse. As soon as 
she caught sight of the village she stopped. Was she * 
going to return alone? 

She was standing there when she heard a voice call- 
ing her by name, softly: 

"Frangoise ! Frangoise!" 

And she beheld Dominique, raising his head above 
the edge of a ditch. Just God! she had found him! 

Could it be, then, that heaven willed his death? 
She suppressed a cry that rose to her lips and slipped 
into the ditch beside him. 

"You were looking for me?" he asked. 

"Yes," she replied bewilderedly, scarce knowing 
what she was saying. 

"Ah! what has happened?" 

She stammered, with eyes downcast: "Why, noth- 
ing; I was anxious, I wanted to see you." 

Thereupon, his fears alleviated, he went on to tell 
her how it was that he had remained in the vicinity. 
He was alarmed for them. Those rascally Prussians 
were not above wreaking their vengeance on women 
and old men. All had ended well, however, and he 
added, laughing: 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 26$ 



"The wedding will be deferred for a week, that's 
all." 

He became serious, however, upon noticing that 
her dejection did not pass away. 

l4 But what is the 'matter? You are concealing 
something from me." 

"No, I give you my word I am not. I am tired; I 
ran all the way here." 

He kissed her, saying it was imprudent for them 
both to remain there longer, and was about to climb 
out of the ditch in order to return to the forest, She 
stopped him ; she was trembling violently. 

"Listen, Dominique; perhaps it will be as well for 
you to remain here, after all. There is no one look- 
ing for you, you have nothing to fear." 

"Francoise, you are concealing something from 
me," he said again. 

Again she protested that she was concealing noth- 
ing. She only liked to know that he was near her. 
And there were other reasons still that she gave in 
stammering accents. Her manner was so strange that 
no consideration could now have induced him to go 
away. He believed, moreover, that the French would 
return presently. Troops had been seen over toward 
Sauval. 

"Ah! let them make haste; let them come as 
quickly as possible," she murmured fervently. 

At that moment the clock of the church at Ro- 
creuse struck eleven; the strokes reached them, clear 
and distinct. She arose in terror; it was two hours 
since she had left the mill. 

"Listen," she said, with feverish rapidity, "should 



264 



THE ATTACK OX THE MILL. 



we need you I will go up to my room and wave my 
handkerchief from the window." . 

And she started off homeward on a run, while 
Dominique, greatly disturbed in mind, stretched him- 
self at length beside the ditch 'to watch the mill. Just 
as she was about to enter the village Francoise encoun- 
tered an old beggarman, Father Bontemps, who knew 
every one and everything in that part of the country. 
He saluted her; he had just seen the miller, he said, 
surrounded by a crowd of Prussians; then, making 
numerous signs of the cross and mumbling some inar- 
ticulate words, he went his way. 

"The two hours are up," the officer said, when 
Francoise made her appearance. 

Father Merlier was there, seated on the bench be- 
side the well. He was smoking still. The young girl 
again proffered her supplication, kneeling before the 
officer and weeping. Her wish was to gain time. 
The hope that she might yet behold the return of the 
French had been gaining strength in her bosom, and 
amid her tears and sobs she thought she could distin 
guish in the distance the cadenced tramp of an advanc- 
ing army. Oh ! if they would but come and deliver 
them all from their fearful trouble! 

"Hear me, sir; grant us an hour, just one little 
hour. Surely you will not refuse to grant us an hour ! " 

But the officer was inflexible. He even ordered 
two men to lay hold of her and take her away, in order 
that they might proceed undisturbed with the execu- 
tion of the old man. Then a dreadful conflict took 
place in Francoise's heart. She could not allow her 
father to be murdered in that manner; no, no, she 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



265 



would die in company with Dominique rather, and she 
was just darting away in the direction of her room in 
order to signal her fiancJ, when Dominique himself 
entered the courtyard. 

The officer and his soldiers gave a great shout of 
triumph, but he, as if there had been no soul there 
but Francoise, walked straight up to her; he was per- 
fectly calm, and his face wore a slight expression of 
sternness. 

"You did wrong," he said. "Why did you not 
bring me back with you? Had it not been for Father 
Bon temps I should have known nothing of all this. 
Well, I am here, at all events." 

V 

It was three o'clock. The heavens were piled high 
with great black clouds, the tail-end of a storm that 
had been raging somewhere in the vicinity. Beneath 
the coppery sky and ragged scud the valley of Ro- 
creuse,so bright and smiling in the sunlight, became a 
grim chasm, full of sinister shadows. The Prussian 
officer had done nothing with Dominique beyond plac- 
ing him in confinement, giving no indication of his 
ultimate purpose in regard to him. Francoise, since 
noon, had been suffering unendurable agony; not- 
withstanding her father's entreaties she would not 
leave the courtyard. She was waiting for the French 
troops to appear, but the hours slipped by, night was 
approaching, and she suffered all the more since it 
appeared as if the time thus gained would have no 
effect on the final result. 



266 THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



About three o'clock, however, the Prussians began 
to make their preparations for departure. The officer 
had gone to Dominique's room and remained closeted 
with him for some minutes, as he had done the day 
before. Francoise knew that the young man's life was 
hanging in the balance; she clasped her hands and 
put up fervent prayers. Beside her sat Father Mer- 
lier, rigid and silent, declining, like the true peasant 
he was, to attempt any interference with accomplished 
facts. 

"Oh! my God! my God!" Francoise exclaimed, 
"they are going to kill him!" 

The miller drew her to him and took her on his lap 
as if she had been a little child. At this juncture the 
officer came from the room, followed by two men con- 
ducting Dominique between them. 

"Never, never!" the latter exclaimed. "I am 
ready to die." 

"You had better think the matter over," the officer 
replied. "I shall have no trouble in finding some one 
else to render us the service which you refuse. I am 
generous with you; I offer you your life. It is simply 
a matter of guiding us across the forest to Montredon ; 
there must be paths." 

Dominique made no answer. 

"Then you persist in your obstinacy?" 

"Shoot me, and have done with the matter," he 
replied. 

Francoise, in the distance, entreated her lover with 
clasped hands; she was forgetful of all considerations 
save one, she would have had him commit a treason. 
But Father Merlier seized her hands that the Prus- 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



267 



sians might not see the wild gestures of a woman whose 
mind was disordered by her distress. 

"He is right," he murmured, "it is best for him to 
die." 

The firing-party was in readiness. The officer still 
had hopes of bringing Dominique over, and was wait- 
ing to see him exhibit some signs of weakness. Deep 
silence prevailed. Heavy peals of thunder were 
heard in the distance, the fields and woods lay lifeless 
beneath the sweltering heat. And it was in the midst 
of this oppressive silence that suddenly the cry arose: 

"The French! the French!" 

It was a fact ; they were coming. The line of red 
trousers could be seen advancing along the Sauval 
road, at the edge of the forest. In the mill the con- 
fusion was extreme ; the Prussian soldiers ran to and 
fro, giving vent to guttural cries, Not a shot had 
been fired as yet. 

"The French! the French!" cried Francoise, clap- 
ping her hands for joy. She was like a woman pos- 
sessed. She had escaped from her father's embrace 
and was laughing boisterously, her arms raised high in 
air. They had come at last, then, and had come in 
time, since Dominique was still there, alive! 

A crash of musketry that rang in her ears like a 
thunder-clap caused her to suddenly turn her head. 
The officer had muttered: "We will finish this busi- 
ness first," and with his own hands pushing Dominique 
up against the wall of a shed, had given the com- 
mand to the squad to fire. When Francoise turned 
Dominique was lying on the ground, pierced by a 
dozen bullets. 



26S 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



She did not shed a tear, she stood there like one 
suddenly rendered senseless. Her eyes were fixed 
and staring, and she went and seated herself beneath 
the shed, a few steps from the lifeless body. She 
looked at it wistfully; now and then she would make 
a movement with her hand in an aimless, childish way. 
The Prussians had seized Father Merlier as a hostage. 

It was a pretty fight. The officer, perceiving that 
he could not retreat without being cut to pieces, rap- 
idly made the best disposition possible of his men; it 
was as well to sell their lives dearly. The Prussians 
were now the defenders of the mill and the French 
were the attacking party. The musketry fire began 
with unparalleled fury; for half an hour there was no 
lull in the storm. Then a deep report was heard and 
a ball carried away a large branch of the old elm. 
The French had artillery; a battery, in position just 
beyond the ditch where Dominique had concealed 
himself, commanded the main street of Rocreuse. 
The conflict could not last long after that. 

Ah! the poor old mill! The cannon-balls raked it 
from wall to wall. Half the roof was carried away; 
two of the walls fell in. But it was on the side toward 
the Morelle that the damage was greatest. The ivy, 
torn from the tottering walls, 'hung in tatters, debris 
of every description floated away upon the bosom of 
the stream, and through a great breach Franchise's 
chamber was visible with its little bed, the snow-white 
curtains of which were carefully drawn. Two balls 
struck the old wheel in quick succession and it gave 
one parting groan ; the buckets were carried away 
down stream, the frame was crushed into a shapeless 



THE ATTACK ON THE MILL. 



269 



mass. It was the soul of the stout old mill, parting 
from the body. 

Then the French came forward to carry the place 
by storm. There was a mad hand-to-hand conflict 
with the bayonet. Under the'dull sky the pretty val- 
ley became a huge slaughter-pen; the broad meadows 
looked on affrightedly, with their great isolated trees 
and their rows of poplars, dotting them with shade, 
while to right and left the forest was like the walls of 
a tilting-ground inclosing the combatants, and in na- 
ture's universal panic the gentle murmur of the springs 
and water-courses sounded like sobs and wails. 

Francoise had not stirred from the shed, where she 
remained hanging over Dominique's body. Father 
Merlier had met his death from a stray bullet. Then 
the French captain, the Prussians being exterminated 
and the mill on fire, entered the courtyard at the head 
of his men. It was the first success that he had 
gained since the breaking out of the war, so, all afire 
with enthusiasm, drawing himself up to the full height 
of his lofty stature, he laughed pleasantly, as a hand- 
some cavalier like him might laugh, and perceiving 
poor idiotic Francoise where she crouched between the 
corpses of her father and her husband, among the 
smoking ruins of the mill, he saluted her gallantly with " 
his sword and shouted: 

14 Victory! victory!" 



THE END. 



